The Perfect TREE!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
In honor of my friend Kyle, who incessantly sings the song The Perfect Tree (which my dad sang every year growing up at Clarksburg Baptist Church during this season), we have titled this blog as such.

Tara and I decided that we would celebrate our first Christmas in the Evergreen state by cutting down one of their very namesake. We went to an Evergreen farm (the same place we picked our Halloween pumpkins) and picked our tree out of a lineup. It was difficult but what can we say, it just spoke to us...

After "easily" cutting it down and getting just a bit of help to load it up to the car, we took our 7 foot 7-8 year old friend home. At least that process was easy, that was until we figured out our stand didn't have the bolts still, which I decided I could overcome with some heavy duty 6 inch screws from a quick trip to The Home Depot. However, it then became obvious (once we tried to rehydrate our thirsty friend) that the base we had traveled with had become broken, and there was a very large( and porous) crack throughout the bottom. A quick trip to Target fixed that, where we purchased a new base, which of course nullified my McGruber way of getting our tree to stand with just the screws.

Total, it only took about 45 minutes to cut down, travel with, stand, and decorate our first real tree in our very own house (ok.. 7 hours). In hindset, it was totally worth it as you'll see below in the play by play photo series narrating our journey from living beautiful creation of God, to dying shrub in our living room that may or may not actually remain in a vertical position until after Christmas...

YAY CHRISTMAS!!! :)

The Christmas Tree Farm Our tree! Now, how do I cut it down?
TIMBER!
A man and his kill.
My bride and our tree.
"He was so young. Why did he have to die?!"
Shaking out the extra dead needles
(much appreciated by the one of us who cleans the house)An amazing way to wrap the trees for you (for $3 extra)... "no thanks"
"Ummm, excuse me sir, can you help me with trying this to the car?"

Thanks! (please don't fall off, please don't fall off)
Delivery for Santa...."What, we're missing parts? How do we get it to stand?!"
Hooooold, hoooold!
What a great job decorating by Tara!THE CHRISTMAS CARD!
Well, thanks for reading our pre-Christmas post! Hope it has inspired some holiday spirit :)
Go JESUS!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This past week we celebrated a couple of firsts in the Rohrbough household. We had our first Thanksgiving on the West Coast, we hosted Thanksgiving for the first time, and we cooked and ate our first turducken! As noted in our last post, we even had snow for Thanksgiving, something I don't remember having in years! Even though it was difficult not being with our families on Thanksgiving we were blessed to be surrounded by wonderful new friends who have become our West Coast family.

Thursday afternoon around 4 o'clock we had several of the first year residents and their families over to our home for a Thanksgiving potluck. We feasted on an array of cheeses, pomegranate dip, wines, chex mix, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, stuffing, salad, bourbon corn pudding, pumpkin pie, Swedish pancakes, cannolis, cakes, cookies, lasagna, ham, and turducken...oh my! The food was plentiful and the left overs are still here. We cleared out our front room and our dear friends borrowed folding tables and chairs from their church. We ate, talked, ate, laughed, and ate some more. I have a feeling Ty had a few table scraps along the way as well.

Here are some pictures from our dinner. Sorry there are not more, but my camera is on the verge of dying for good so it struggles just to stay on long enough to snap a shot. Needless to say a new camera will hopefully be a cyber Monday purchase. Here are a few of the pictures I did get:

These are the candle holders from our wedding with leftover Halloween candy in them :)

One of the two tables.

Our love for potatoes would soon fade due to overexposure...

2 bags / 30 pounds - blah!

Soaking and waiting until it's time to mash.

Appetizers and drinks.

The buffet feast (Hunter and Soobin digging in)

YUM!

The prized bird - a Turducken!
(A chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey, with cornbread stuffing)

CR enjoying a leg.

A tuckered out Ty.

SNOW!?!

Our first Thanksgiving week on the Left Coast has started out with...snow?!?

Initially, we were a little bummed about living in an area where seeing snow accumulate was quite a bit more rare than we were used to, and thus far the rain has been just as common as the sterotype suggests.
However, yesterday and today this area has been slowly accumulating 1-3 inches of snow and even more in some parts of the state. Its's not even thanksgiving yet and already it's a white Christmas!!

Tara and Ty love! This is his first snow (as far as we know). I am more commonly driving in it so it's ok...

Here are some pics from around the house, neighborhood, and Ty enjoying himself in the yard:

The neighborhood

Our street

Ty favorite activity is eating the snow.

He is mesmerized. So is Tara.

Crazy Baking, Ty's Birthday, Jobs...

Happy November! It is hard to believe that 2010 is almost over and the holidays are right around the corner! Washington has been a very rainy place for the last couple of days, I guess this is the "rainy season" we had been warned about. So far it has not been too bad, although Ty is not a fan of the rain because it hinders him from going out.

Today was a crazy baking day in the Rohrbough household. But, before I get to the that I want to update you on my job search (at this point it's obvious that the "I" in our blog is in reference to Tara unless prefaced otherwise). I moved out to Washington mid-June after my contract with Taylor County ended and spent the rest of the month getting accustomed to the area and unpacking, trying to make our house a home. I was also waiting for all of my paperwork to come through in order to be certified as a School Counselor in the state of Washington. I applied to all of the school counseling jobs that were open in 8 different districts but was made aware than until all of my paperwork came through I would not be considered an applicant because my file was "incomplete". The beginning of the school year came and went and I finally received all of my paperwork, but the open positions had all been filled. I started looking into substituting, but you have to have a teaching degree in order to substitute, and I do not. I have been looking weekly, daily for positions and have applied for what feels like tons. I have applied as a case manager, after-school program supervisor, drug abuse counselor, various positions on the Army base, and last week I even applied to work at the Gap clothing store in our local mall. I have had one interview (I did not get the position), and have another one coming up this week. I have called to check back with most of the positions I have applied for only to hear that they have extended the application deadline or they have not decided on an applicant yet. This has been a frustrating process to say the least because I am not good at sitting still for very long. Even so, I tried my best to remain hopeful and positive that something will open up (as hard as this is). I have recently decided that I need to make the most of my time and not sulk about being unemployed. We live in a beautiful part of the world where there is so much to see and do. We have an awesome dog who is up for anything. And probably most important to me, we have made some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. CR's program has so many amazing people and families and we are blessed to be a part of it. I want to take each day in as a gift and be thankful for every second.

Thanks for listening to my rant, now on to the good stuff :) With all of this time on my hands I have been trying my hand at cooking and baking. My sister (actually my whole family) has always joked that I can't even boil water - I won't go into why this is the case :) I actually ENJOY baking! Recently, I have made several chicken dishes for dinner, chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake for CR's birthday, vanilla bean scones, key lime pie, pumpkin pancakes, and an orange juice cake just to name a few.

Today's creations were bacon caramel popcorn (saw it on the Food Network and wanted to give it a shot) and a dog birthday cake for Ty (our cousin, Katie, who is a vet tech would cringe). The bacon caramel popcorn sounded gross, but delicious, I mean how can you go wrong with bacon?? It turned out disgustingly delicious, if you know what I mean. It's one of those things that tastes good, but it's SO bad for you!





Here is the link to that recipe: http://the-cooking-of-joy.blogspot.com/2010/02/bacon-caramel-corn.html

Also, today our pup Tyson is 1, so I thought I would make him a cake. I want everyone to realize that this does mean I have too much time on my hands, but I thought it would be fun and he REALLY enjoyed it!









Here is the link to that recipe (I only made half): http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12764.asp

Finally, CR and I had our first experience passing out candy to trick-or-treaters last night and we had a great time. There were about 30 kids that stopped by and we still have way too much candy left over. Although we did not dress up, Ty did. I will leave you with a picture of Ty's costume for the night - did you expect him to be anything else?

Carving Pumpkins

This weekend CR and I, along with our neighbor, Kamiah, carved pumpkins that we picked at a local pumpkin patch. Kamiah helped us find outlines online and last year we found a battery powered carver on clearance. We also sipped hot apple cidar and baked the pumpkin seeds - an overall festive night!

Here are the final products:

CR's is on the left, Tara's is on the right.

Kamiah's is the one on the far right.

Spooky, huh?

Canda, eh?

A couple of note worthy things have happened since we last posted so we thought we'd catch you all up...

Last Saturday Ty "graduated" from puppy obedience school at Petsmart! After 8 weeks we have seen significant growth in Ty, especially in his ability to listen and have better impulse control. We learned so many great "games" that he enjoys but still learns basic commands from. We consistently had one other dog in class with us. He was a chow named Winchester, Chester for short. He was so well behaved we often wondered why he was in obedience class to begin with. He made Ty look like a tyrant for sure! Ty absolutely loved his trainer who we lovingly refer to as "Uncle Ron." Even after classes have concluded Ty will still automatically sit for anyone wearing a blue shirt or a fanny pack. We took him for a walk in Olympia around Capital Lake and a guy walked by wearing a dog fanny pack for treats and Ty immediately ran up and sat in front of the guy!!





Last week we took Ty to the vet because he was scratching and chewing some places raw on his neck and foot. CR thought it was nothing to worry about, so Tara took him in :) The vet was absolutely wonderful! She loved Ty and could not say enough about his wonderful personality and how cute he is - however she clearly does not live with him. $140 later we had two antibiotics, a cream, and a new flea treatment. The vet said Ty still has his "puppy mites" and the flea treatment we were using had failed. So now we (a.k.a.CR) are giving our 20lb. dog two pills twice a day and rubbing cream on all of his open wounds.

Recently, we have been playing hide and seek with Ty. He absolutely loves it and caught on immediately. One of us will go with him into the bedroom while the other hides. As soon as Ty hears "ready!" he leaps into action to try and find the other person who is hiding with a treat. He gets so excited and into the game! Do I sound like an obsessed dog owner yet? I guess I should move on for fear that if I don't I might :)

This past weekend CR had four whole days off! Friday our friend Lindsey Wagner from Portland came down with her dog, Ruth. Lindsey and I spent hours at Shipwrecked Beads looking for beads to make earrings. The dogs played all day!! CR and I took Lindsey to her first taste of pho (Vietnamese noddle dish) before she had to head back. Friday night one of CR's fellow interns had a family medicine cook out at her home. There was a great turn out and we were reminded just how much we love the people in this program!

Saturday, TARA got up early and drove 3 hours North to spend the day sight seeing/shopping in Vancouver, Brittish Columbia. CR is not legally allowed to go more than 250 miles from home or leave the country without a 10-week notice, printed itinerary, and approval from his program - so he DID NOT go. Crossing the border was an interesting experience. Border control asked a number of interesting questions including, "where are you going? why are you going there? do you plan on buying anything? who are you meeting while there? where do you live? what do you do for a living? etc." As far as differences once you cross the border, the main two were measurement conversions (they use kilometers) and they don't like our money. I spent hours walking in downtown Vancouver - ALONE - and loved going into all of the local shops and boutiques. Overall, it was a fun place that I look forward to going going to again, this time with more planning and a place to stay..oh, and with CR.

Canadian Border - beautiful!

Took a while to get through...

$1.15!?! Nope, gas is measured in liters...

We were going 102! Kilometers that is.


On Sunday we were truly blessed with the opportunity to watch our good friends Mike and Soobin Kim get baptized and become members of the Korean American Church here in the Tacoma area. The church has recently moved and does not have a baptistery so they are using a local lake. It was freezing but amazingly the rain held off from the time we left church until just after they were able to dry off. It was incredible to be a part of, especially sharing the joy with Mike's parents who were in from Cincinnati, OH.

That's all for now. Tara is still on the job search but turned in an application on Thursday and got a phone call for a potential job on Friday. We shall see what happens this coming week :)

Happy Birthday Nanny!

Why blog when the person you are blogging about will most likely never see it?
Because a Nanny Birthday is nothing less than momentous occasion.

Helen V. Hickman turns 91 today.

I asked her once what it was like being born in 1919. She said,"the stone tools were hard to use and living in caves was probably the worst part...that and the fear of the mighty
Tyrannosaurus Rex."

Ok, while that may not be completely true, what is true is that my Nanny has played an immense role in my life. Her love and support throughout the years. Her laugh (cackle?) and smile is always near to brighten everyone's day and we as a family as supremely blessed to have such a experienced leader and matriarch to guide us and to love us as she does.

Nan,

Tara and I love you and we miss you very much. May this birthday be one of your greatest. Know that our thoughts are with you on this day...your day. Come visit us soon.