Feeding the 5000

OK, 5000 may be a slight exaggeration but yesterday my sister and I did feed about 175 people. My cousin got married and we offered to serve the food. The wedding was at 3pm so we served snack foods instead of a full meal. This is what my kitchen counter looked like prior to the big day. We borrowed all the trays and crock pots so I had to store them all before hand.
Then on Friday we set up the church; this is what it looked like when we arrived.

After the church was set up we spent all of Friday afternoon making and preparing food. Here my mom and Brittany are chopping vegetables for the pasta salad and vegetable trays.

One tray complete, many more to go.

This was our little coffee station at the church. It may not look that impressive, but for my sister, mom and I who don't drink coffee this was a minor victory. Although we were told that for an afternoon/evening wedding you shouldn't serve caffeinated coffee (sorry to all the guests who couldn't sleep all night!)

This was the only fridge we had use of in the church. See how packed full it was? We actually had to put a table in front of the fridge to keep the door closed because it kept popping open.

A picture of the completed pasta salad.

And our meat tray.

And the cheese tray.

And the rolls.

And meatballs.

Even Maxx helped set up the tables.

Here we are waiting for the guests to arrive and happy everything is in place.

The finished product ready for guests to eat.

After everyone had eaten we also had to serve the cake. Thankfully Charissa came and helped us with the whole event. Between keeping the plates, punch bowl, coffee creamer and everything else filled, it was nice to have the extra hands.

We had just the right amount of meatballs, rolls, meat and cheese and jello salad, but made way too much pasta and potato salad. For our first (and maybe only) attempt at feeding 200ish people it went quite well.

Just a pie

I know this is a silly post but I just made my first pie from scratch- crust and everything- and since no one is here to appreciate this accomplishment, I figured I'd post a picture:

Doesn't it look delicious? I'm bringing it to work tomorrow so hopefully it is. I followed the recipe Lyndsey posted on her blog. (Yes, I'm a copy cat).

Before and After

I've been very busy lately with various tasks around the house and I have the pictures to prove it.

PROJECT #1
First, my garden. After winter my garden looked like this, full of weeds:

Then, after lots of weeding I planted seeds and it looked like this: (see my blueberry plants?)

And it grew into this with beans, tomato and blueberry plants:See the nice blueberries? They are delicious. This sunflower randomly grew in the backyard:

PROJECT #2
Our garage has nice shelves on the sides but see where the fridge is? We don't use the fridge to keep things cool, just to store stuff on top of it.
So I had a great idea to build some more shelves. For $7.00 (the cost of the screws) and the use of some old wood we had I was able to build these with the help of my dad:

PROJECT #3
This ugly bathroom was the biggest of the 3 projects. Here are the before pictures:

So I had new floors put in:
And my mom helped; here she is doing a great job of not cursing at the leaking plumbing like I wanted to (thankfully a call to grandpa and he told us how to fix the leak):
And the finished project!
I'm so happy with how it turned out and appreciative of my mom's help so I could complete this project in 1 weekend!

Happy

Finally Ben's turn has come for R&R. We didn't do much since Ben just wanted to relax but we were able to go on a 6 mile hike to Opal Creek. It was a beautiful day and a great time to spend together and in the beauty Oregon has to offer.

My Birthday Hike

For my birthday my parents and sister and I went to Multnomah Falls to go on a hike. I found a recommended hike online at this site which warned it was moderate in difficulty but that didn't scare me. The hike was 4.9 miles with an elevation gain of 1600 feet. Literally, the first 2 hours or so of the hike was uphill. The hike took us past 10 named waterfalls and countless cascades and intermittent falls. It was a loop following the Wahkeena Trail for the majority of the time.


Isn't Oregon beautiful with so much green?!?

Fairy Falls:

View of the Columbia River:

Wahkeena Springs (Brittany and I drank from the spring, it was great tasting water):

Ecola Falls:

Little Multnomah Falls:

Multonomah Falls:

Multnomah Falls and Benson Bridge:

After this spectacular hike we headed to Red Robin where I got my free birthday burger. It was a great day and a great birthday.

Oregon Beauty

Last weekend my dad and I had the opportunity to go to Opal Creek for a 6.5 mile hike. It was really nice.

Today, my parents, 3 foster kids and I went to Drift Creek Falls. The hike was shorter, only a little over 3 miles, but we got to go over this 240-foot suspension bridge (the longest in Oregon) that hovers 100 feet above Drift Creek:

My mom was scared, see?

But in her defense, look how high up we were:

Here is the another view of the cascading 80-foot Drift Creek Falls.

Even though it rained a little, it was a great trip!

Can you see now?

Since no one could see my trees from the previous post, I am posting an updated picture. Both trees now are beginning to grow leaves so you can see them now!