Lost Rocks

Our latest adventure: Lost Rocks. Redwood National Park (#10).

OUR garden

farmers market haul.flowers in the back yard.a sprout.the before picture....

Garden trip

Over the weekend, we took a trip to our local bouldering spot, The Garden. The Garden isn't necessarily a "secret" area, but new climbers or climbers who are simply new to the area generally have to work a bit to figure it out. It's not heavily trafficked, but we've been climbing there since last summer.

The rock is volcanic, but it feels more like granite or even sandstone. I love it.

This was my first trip out there in MONTHS. This area of Oregon is wet, and The Garden is basically in a rain forest at the edge of the Cascades. When it rains, it takes several days to dry out, and we just haven't had good luck until now. I'm sure we'll be there a lot this summer.

On this trip, we messed around on a few problems, and I got a project I'd been working on for the past few trips. It's lame that I had to project this thing. It's not that hard, but there are a few more powerful moves on it (for me at least). And every other time I've worked it, I've had my ever-present issue of beta-amnesia & tiring myself out. Anyway, check it out!

This is one of our first climbing videos that we made with our new camera! I'm so excited about ...just the fact that we have the ability to MAKE videos now. It's so much fun. Look for more from us soon!

Seattle - part one

So, on our amazing Washington weekend trip, we made it into Seattle on Friday night just before our reservation at The Golden Beetle, which was amazing. We had several drinks, delicious dips, olives, pizza ...and Aaron had lamb. I slept well, which was good, because we had lots of exploring to do on Saturday.

We started out at Pike Place Market to avoid the crowds there.

P.S.: I was so disappointed by the gum wall. I suppose it takes a lot of gum to cover the surface that it does, but, I guess I was just expecting more...

La Push

The Beach at La Push is beautiful. (Even more beautiful than it is described in Twilight. Heh!) I think it was my favorite part of Olympic, even though I think it's technically just outside the park. We saw three eagles and a seal. And we stood there and let the wind blow through our hair. A perfect day.

hiking olympic national park

I can breathe deeper in these places where everything is lush and green and mountainous...

lake quinault in fog

We woke up to this view a few Fridays ago. And then I ate the best pancakes of my life: sweet potato pancakes with vanilla bean butter. There are no words.

New things, carb-filled things...

Phew. Busiest Saturday ever. I started early and baked some bagels...

Bagels are my JAM right now, as I explained in my last post, and these are the pièce de résistance. If you don't like asiago cheese bagels, I don't want to be your friend. They've been my favorite kind of bagels since... the moment my first asiago cheese bagel touched my lips.

I love the process of making bagels. It's one of the most fun things ever: you make dough, let it rise, form the bagels themselves (it's like playing with play dough!), poach them & then you get to "decorate" them with ingredients.

I want to make all of the different kinds of bagels! So far I've just made: garlic & herb, whole wheat & asiago. That leaves me about a million other variations to try out, and I can't wait.

My new goal in life is to open a bagel shop....unless I turn out to be a concert pianist.

This piano came to live with us today! Which makes it sound a lot easier than it actually was.... We had to drive to Albany; pick up a trailer, which Aaron's boss very generously let us borrow; pick up our friend and helper, Dean; drive back to Corvallis; load the piano into the trailer; drive to our house; load it out & into our house; drive the trailer & Dean back to Albany... Phew. The moving process went much easier than the three of us anticipated, but It's so worth it. I can see the piano now from where I'm sitting, and it just makes our house seem more lived-in and homier.

And, of course, I plan to play it...the little bit that I can.

Another new thing that came today was our Canon 7D, which we won on Ebay over two weeks ago! I'm glad it came in time for our trip next week, and I'm still figuring out all of the settings & getting better at shooting Canon....

Yes, this one is out of focus. Black dogs are hard to shoot in low light, but I thought this was too adorable not to share! These are where the pups sit when they're waiting for their meals. :)

And here's a shot of our pizza dinner...yup, sourdough pizza dough was also on the docket for today. So delicious! Such a happy day!

Insta-recap

So, I know I said I'd blog more... But, the problem is, I still don't have a camera. BUT, I don't think that will not be the case much longer, so I thought I'd go ahead and jump the gun, and show you what I've been up to for the past several months. If you follow me on Instagram already, this might be kind of boring. If not, I'm @calliebellez. Get to following...

On January 1, we picked up the dogs from their holiday stay at the Muddy Dog Ranch. They were very tired and very happy to be home. So was I!

I was sick over the holidays, but started to feel better, so we took a Bouldering trip to Bend over MLK weekend where I climbed the tallest boulder problem of my life. For a girl who doesn't like heights, this was a big deal. We also drank a lot of amazing craft beer and ate delicious pub food. Oh, Central Oregon, how I love thee.

After the trip, I started to feel crappy again - a relapse from my earlier ear infection/cold. I drank lots of tea and took lots of baths and struggled to do daily activities let alone climb or go to the gym. It was the worst. I almost never get sick, so this knocked me back big time.

I never lost my appetite, though, and this fajita meal was one of my favorites so far this whole year. It was delicious. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

And then we had snow.... lots of lots of cold and snow. Thankfully, that has passed by now. I feel sorry for the Northeast, still getting covered by it.

The snow cleared in time for me to head up to Vancouver for a work conference. It was my first time in Canada, and my first time at a professional conferencey event! I wrote about it here.

One of my New Years' resolutions was to walk the dogs more. And I'm happy to say that we are succeeding with usually at least two walks per week. Sometimes they are around our neighborhood, but other times, we go for fun hikes together. I love this photo. It's the background of my phone right now. :)

I competed in my first climbing competition! At The Crux gym in Eugene. It was a total blast, and I'm glad I did it! I finished fifth in my division. Not too shabby.

We went cross-country skiing for the first time and had SO much fun!

I made bagels for the first time, and they turned out better than I ever could have imagined. EVER. They're better than any bakery bagel I have ever had in my whole life. I may have found a calling: bagel baker. Just kidding. If I did that for a living, I'd weight 300 pounds. But, I will make more.

I was, as usual, surprised at how easy it was. I was always intimidated by the poaching step, but it wasn't bad at all! Here's the recipe I used! I highly, highly suggest the cookbook.

I think next, I'm going for a doubled recipe of whole wheat bagels. Om nom.

That's it for now. See you soon!

October at Smith

We were lucky to spend two weekends at Smith Rock State Park this month! I hadn't been out there in months and months before that, which I think turned out to be a good thing. Smith Rock does strange things to my mental game in terms of climbing.

I let the crowds bother me. And the heat (even in the crispness of the central Oregon fall, the sun on those rocks is sweltering, still). But the past two trips have been really great, and I've made progress (and yes, sends)!

And I've been such a terrible blogger, I haven't even written about the new addition to our family that came in September: Charlie!!!

Charlie is a seven-month-old pitbull/lab mix. Here he is with Boone, cuddled up in the shade:

I almost can't handle how adorable they are. Charlie has a very sweet, calm disposition. He's sort of slow and lumbering. Much more thoughtful and accepting than Boone. They balance each other out well. They're both learning things form each other, and I love watching them interact.

We're hanging out at the Morning Glory wall and the Dihedrals mostly. Aaron's working a 12b called Latest Rage! Here's me this past weekend, after my send of Nine Gallon Buckets and before working my project, Cool Ranch Flavor. I was on Cool Ranch when we started feeling a few raindrops, which turned into a bit of a downpour and mass evacuation from the park. Eek!

I'll leave you with Ryan Palo, a guy who can climb much, much harder than me. Here he is aiding his way up Scar Face to set up a giant top rope SWING at the top. You stand, tied in, on top of a nearby boulder and let your belayer pull you off so you can swing back and forth a few times. It looks like a blast!

Smith Rock IS a beautiful place. I'm too hard on it sometimes.

Fire

"Fire operates at a number of different scales. The smallest is that of a campfire, where you're just mixing fuel and oxygen and a heat source and theoretically, it perpetuates itself in time." --- Dr. John Bailey, Oregon State University

I've been working on a story about fire and fire science for work. Thus, thinking a lot about it, and about all the wonderful campfires Aaron has built for us. :)

Anyway... I've also just been plugging along. Working. Cleaning. Last weekend was nice if not a little rainy. We spent Sunday in Portland enjoying IKEA, Foster burger, shopping in the Pearl and seeing Dr. Dog play with The Lumineers.

I've also been drinking more tea and wearing more boots and scarves. More of that to come, I'm sure.

Rogue Farms

We spent the day at the Rogue Farms Hopyard in Independence! Aaron had to take one photo for work, and since we were up there, we decided to make a day of it and show ourselves around!

Most of our Rogue experiences has been at their headquarters in Newport, which is just an hour away from us! The Hopyard is closer, and it so much fun! They were hosting a harvest festival today. They have a lot of events! I would love to go back up for a cider-making workshop or pumpkin festival!

This swing was the scene of the crime for the photo. The actual subjects were not upside down, but I always think I make a great stand-in!

The two pigs were my favorite. The brother-sister pair are named Voo and Doo, and they're old and arthritic and adorable. I'm glad they've had such a happy life on the farm!

I had the new barley wine. You should probably get some!

Bonus photo. I just liked how this one turned out! All of these photos were taken by my talented husband, of course. Mine can be found on Instagram. =P