Our Zoo Traditions

Our family loves the Zoo. We live about 45 minutes from the Oregon Zoo in Portland, Oregon. As a child I enjoyed this zoo very much. here is a picture of me and my sister on one of our zoo trips in 1979, I was six, and my sister Amy was four.






As teen, I volunteered at the zoo for two and a half years, first as a children's zoo volunteer, and then as a "Zoo Teen". Volunteering at the zoo was a wonderful experience, not only did I learn so much about the animals I worked with, but was also able to earn "behind the scene" tours of the tigers, bears, and primates.

As a young mother, I still lived in Portland, and took my children, who were still stroller age on outings to the zoo once or twice every week. They loved seeing the animals and enjoyed the nice stroll through the zoo grounds. Now that we live a bit further away, our trips to the zoo are only once or twice a year. My daughter requested a trip to the zoo this year for her birthday, the weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. We had a wonderful time looking at all of the animals and walking through all of the zoo's trails. We took lots of great pictures. My daughter has recently become fond of taking pictures and had quite a fun time taking pictures throughout the zoo.

One of our first stops was the black bear exhibit- there were four bears, and they were all pretty young, here is one of the bigger bears below. One of the cubs was frolicking in a small pool of water, he was so playful. We watched these bears for quite some time, we decided they act quite a bit like our two black labs.





Here is a picture of me and my sister Amy, in 1979, at the Oregon Zoo Bear Exhibit.



We really enjoyed the Cascade exhibit, a lovely trail, with animals native to the cascades along the way through a pretty forest trail.






At the end of the cascade exhibit is a wonderful exhibit of farm life, here are Gary and the kids by the tractor.



The farm area also had a wonderful display of a raised bed garden area, the gardener in me loved this little set up, I snapped quite a few pictures to get ideas for my own garden. Here is one of the pictures.



Here is a picture of an animal hutch, I had to take a picture as I would love to have something like it built one day for quail or rabbits.



Here I am with Gary and the kids outside of the Garden exhibit.






Anyone who has read my blog much, knows that I am always amazed at God's miracles in the garden, the same can be said of me when I look at all of the creatures at the zoo, I am truly amazed at what God has created.

God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God Saw that it was good. Genesis 1:25

Each animal is so unique, and so amazing, I was staring at the giraffes and just awe struck by the massive height, and the perfect design of their long necks, how sweet the mother giraffe was being with her child- I can only say Amazing!!



We saw an absolutely darling baby elephant just done playing in the water. So cute!!





Midway through we stopped for lunch, here Sarah and Joe are planning the rest of our route on the zoo map.



Here the kids are outside of the Lion exhibit, unfortunately this Lion statue was all we saw of the Lions, the weather was a bit hotter at this point and a lot of the animals were seeking shelter from the sun.



Here Sarah stopped to get a picture of an interesting plant along the trail- the Oregon Zoo has wonderful gardens throughout!



Here is the Tiger, when I was a teen I went on a behind the scenes tour of the Tigers, they are massive up close.



This cat is an Ocelot- Gary took these wonderful pictures.





This is one of the wolves, being dog lovers we really enjoyed seeing the wolves.




One of our zoo traditions that we stop to do each trip is a photo session at the sculpture garden. I have a picture of my self as a young girl back in the 1970's at this sculpture garden, and have been taking pictures of my children at nearly every age by these same sculptures, great way to see how they have changed each year. Here is a picture of me in the sculpture garden in 1979.



Here are a few of our sculpture garden pictures from this years trip.











Here is Joseph resting on a bench beneath a tree in the sculpture gardens. Joseph loves any bench under a tree.



Before we leave the zoo, we always stop in at the gift shop. When the kids were little we started collecting the nice hard plastic animals, each trip we would pick one or two new ones for our collection. These are the sort of animals like Schleich makes. These are great toys to play with amongst the blocks, we still get them out everytime the younger cousins visit. This time we added an african wild dog. Here is the one we saw at the zoo.




At the end of the day we had quite a hike back to the car, we passed by this wonderful train outside the Forestry Center (another great place to visit by the Oregon Zoo) and had to get one last shot of the family.






We had a wonderful time at the zoo, and look forward to our next visit.

Independence Day & Nana's Barbeque

Fourth of July weekend around our home is full of many celebrations, our daughter Sarah's birthday is July 3rd, so we get to celebrate her birthday and then the Fourth of July. It always makes for a fun full weekend of celebration.

This year for her birthday Sarah requested a trip to the zoo, she loves animals, and our family has enjoyed many trips to the zoo over the years. I will be posting about our zoo trip later this week, we had a lot of fun and I got great pictures of the whole family. I will share this one picture now, a perfect one for fourth of July. This is a beautiful bald eagle that we saw while we were there, the Eagle exhibit is wonderful, you can see the birds close up, and they are majestic.



We had a small BBQ to celebrate the fourth, and in addition to standard BBQ food, I wanted another option as well. I decided it would be a perfect day to make some of my Nana's Barbeque. This recipe is similar to Sloppy Joe's, but is has a slightly different taste, and is perfect to serve on a summer day. My Nana (my great grandma) was a wonderful cook, she raised her family during the great depression, and could make foods stretch, I love hearing my grandma tell stories of the way they ate and lived back then, such a rich history, I never tire of hearing these stories. This is a family favorite recipe that has been passed down.

Nana's Barbeque

2 lbs ground beef
2 large onions
2 cups chopped celery
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 cups canned tomato
1/4 cup ketchup
3 Tablespoon Minute Tapioca
2 Tablespoons Chili Powder

Brown and drain burger in a large soup pot, set aside. Saute onion and celery in the same pan used to brown burger until soft (I premade the ground meat, so I sauteed in a little olive oil). Add tomato, salt, and ketchup- add back in the meat. Simmer for 20 minutes, add chili powder and tapioca. Simmer for an hour. Add a little more tomato if too thick and more tapioca if too thin. Serve on Hamburger Buns.



I made this in a crock pot and cooked it on high for about four hours rather than on the stove, I liked it in the crock pot so that it would stay warm for the BBQ.

Another thing I do a little different than the original recipe is add about a Tablespoon or two of sugar- it helps cut down the acidic quality of the tomato and spice- our whole family enjoys slightly sweeter than tangy tomato dishes and I almost always include some sugar when cooking with tomato. The recipe turned out great, and we had a bunch left over which makes for wonderful leftovers. This mixture also is wonderful served over pasta.

We had a very fun time lighting our fire works out front, I love how everyone in the neighborhood is out with children having fun watching fireworks. Our small town hosts a big rodeo with fireworks for fourth of July weekend- the whole town comes alive- as well as the sky filled with fireworks. I love it, very fun town to live in for Independence Day. I hope everyone had a fun celebration.

Independence Day celebrates our freedom, true freedom comes from our Lord Jesus.

I will leave you with a couple of verses -

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32

"Sweet" Sixteen Party

Yesterday my daughter had a few of her friends from school over to celebrate her upcoming 16th birthday. I mentioned in a previous post how much we enjoy watching cupcake wars, a fun show on the food channel where different cupcake bakeries compete to see who will win and have their cupcakes featured at some fancy event, as well as money for their business. Sarah and I have a lot of fun looking at all of the beautiful designs and flavors they come up with. For her party we had fun working on cupcakes together, as well as a fun candy buffet to go along with the "Sweet" sixteen theme.

To keep it simple we still used boxed cake mixes, and we only make one of the frostings, the rest were prepared. This way we could focus more on the fun of decorating. Because we stuck with a simple plan, these fun cupcakes could easily be made by anyone. For piping frosting I like to use a ziploc bag, I just cut out a small section of the bottom corner, and use a coupler to put on the tips, much easier to clean up.



We made this chocolate cupcake, with chocolate sprinkles using a star tip.





We made this lemon cupcake with a basic large round tip,some yellow sprinkles and a cherry in the middle.





This cupcake is a vanilla cake, with homemade vanilla frosting, colored with Wilton Violet food color gel. We went with the star tip on this one as well, and used little candy pearls on top. as well as purple sprinkles. (Purple is Sarah's favorite color)



We put out the cupcakes on fun serving pieces, and surrounded them with lots of colorful yummy candy in these great little containers that we found in Walmart's party section, and scattered some pretty purple "gems" around that. We set out plastic bags so guests could takes home as much candy as they liked.





For some silly fun, we found a "Balloon Drop" Bag, filled it with balloons, and hung it on the ceiling, it was pretty fun watching all of the balloons fall down.



For a fun activity, we put together a photo scavenger hunt. There were not enough kids for two teams, so instead of the focus being on competition, the focus was on how creative they could make the pictures. We printed out a map of the neighborhood, and marked the correct area, then made a list of twenty items, things like stop sign, mail box, various items at the park, as well as prompts like create a dramatic scene. The rules being that at least one person had to be in each picture, and everyone had to be in at least two of the pictures. The pictures came back great!



The day was very nice, a perfect kick off to the holiday weekend! Now I'm off to get the house back in order for Monday's Fourth of July BBQ. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Vintage Home Ec & Plum Squares

This week we have all been very busy around the house, we are getting everything ready for my daughter's sweet 16 birthday BBQ. Then right into 4th of July celebrations. As I was working on organizing some of my books, I came across two very fun vintage Home Ec books that I bought awhile back.




These books are wonderful, Adventuring in Home Living from 1959, and Teen Guide to Home-Making from 1961. I bought these when I realised that our middle school didn't have a home ec class. When I was in middle school, it was one of most favorite classes. Now these books are from before my time, I was born in 1973, but even in the mid '80s when I was in 7th and 8th grade everyone had to take basic home ec and basic shop, after that you could go on to more advanced versions of both classes if you wanted to. I took "fashion sewing" in the 8th grade and loved that I could make my own things. I do think the kids these days are missing out by not having these classes.

As I look through the subjects in my vintage Home Ec. books, I am amazed at how many wonderful things were taught to the students. Everything from proper grooming, care of clothing, how to shop for good quality items, healthy meal planning, cleaning skills, caring for the sick, doing your share in the family, entertaining guests- the list goes on.

All of these things are important to living a good and healthy life. I can't wait to spend some time going through these books with my kids, I am looking forward to learning some of these wonderful skills. I would encourage everyone to try finding some of these old home ec text books on ebay or at the thrift shop or used book shop. Super fun to read!!

Now for a recipe- last night for dessert I made Plum Squares- this is a wonderful easy recipe- and would be great for a summer potluck.

Plum Squares

Pre-heat oven to 375 F.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter (softened or even mostly melted)
2 eggs
1 18 oz. jar of plum preserves

Add all of the ingredients to a bowl, and mix until crumbly. pat half of the mixture into the bottom of a 9 x 13 in. baking pan sprayed with cooking spray. Spread the jam over this layer within a 1/4 inch from edge. Then crumble the rest of the mixture over the top.




Bake for 30-40 minutes, until top looks cooked and light golden. Careful removing- the jam will be bubbling hot. Let cool, and cut into squares. This same recipe would be good with just about any preserves.




Hope everyone is having a nice week and gearing up for the holiday weekend!

Sunshine and Flowers

This week I am noticing a lot of yellow and orange flowers in bloom. They are very beautiful, and remind me of the sunshine that has finally decided to stick around for awhile.

Here are some pictures of the Stella D'Oro Day Lily- I have a few of these in my garden, and they always do really well. This is one of those plants that some say you can't beat dead with a stick- to prove that my lab puppy, Zoey, at the beginning of the season when they first came up, took it upon herself to dig at them until they were mostly to ground level- after putting up yet another fence- they grew back, and are flowering nicely. So if you don't have a green thumb, this is the plant to choose. Stella D'Oro means Star of Gold, and they do indeed look like a bright happy star.




Peeking out from various garden foliage (a.k.a. weeds that grew from bird seed that I still need to pull) are some beautiful orange violas. I love this peachy orange color.



Some of the Sedum has started to blossom pretty yellow flowers.



The marigolds are starting to do nicely- I love how this classic garden staple stays colorful for so long- this is the first year I grew some from seed and they are doing well- next year I plan to try a few more varieties. I love tucking these in throughout the veggie garden.




I finally planted some Nasturtium, I have wanted to for years, it is so beautiful, some of them are this dark electric orange, and some are yellow with orange markings, they are doing really well.



Here is an update on the now ginormous weed that we have left in the garden to watch and blog it's progress over the summer. I will have to bring out a measuring tape this week to be sure, but it must be more than four feet tall, and is now covered with flower buds, we are all getting very excited to watch this one bloom. It is really something to see, very huge, and very prickly, I imagine the birds will love the seeds.




Today we decided to eat lunch at a beautiful little park we have right in our neighborhood. This little park sits right next to a large field of berries, and has a lovely view of Mt. Hood off in the distance. It is also surrounded by wet land so there are plenty of birds fling around. Perfect Sunday lunch spot.



While we were there walking around the little trail, I spotted yet another blooming yellow flower. I am not sure what this one is called, if any one knows what this flower is, I would love to learn. Very pretty delicate petals with a wonderful center that just dances in the wind. It is on a low little green bush, very pretty flower.


All of these sunny colored flowers reminds me of this happy bible verse.

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Grandma's Cherry Carnival

When I was young, my grandma had the most wonderful cherry tree in her front yard- her house was in the suburbs and when she bought the cherry tree it was supposed to be semi-dwarf- over the years it became obvious this was no semi-dwarf cherry tree but full sized. This tree produced the most wonderful cherries- we would help grandma pick them every year- and loved all the fresh cherries we would get to eat- she also canned a bunch of them- which were both beautiful and wonderful tasting!

One of my favorite desserts that she would make using these cherries was called Cherry Carnival- a moist cake with cherries inside and topped with a sweet cherry sauce. Today I decided I would make this recipe as a nice summer afternoon dessert.
Very wonderful, and it brought me right back to when I was young, it was nice telling the kids how grandma used to make this recipe for me when I was young.

This recipe is perfect for summer - cherries always remind me of summertime.

Cherry Carnival

Preheat oven to 350 F.

1 can pie cherries (I used a 15 oz can of Dark Sweet Cherries)-Drain and Reserve the liquid from the cherries for the sauce.

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream shortening and sugar, then beat in eggs in a bowl. Sift dry ingredients together, and mix in alternating with milk. Add vanilla, then fold in drained cherries (remember to save the juice from the cherries for the sauce).

Pour into a greased & floured 8x8 inch square baking pan. Bake at 350 F. 30-45 minutes or until done, when toothpick inserted in center comes out dry- or the sides shrink away from the pan. Set aside to cool. I let mine cool for about 15- 20 minutes then I start making the sauce- you could also make the cake before dinner and then make the sauce right before you are ready to serve it.




Cherry Sauce

Reserved Cherry juice plus water to make 2 cups of liquid
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tsp. butter
1/4 tsp. vanilla or almond extract (original recipe calls for Almond extract which would probably taste wonderful if you were not allergic to tree nuts)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon


In a small bowl or cup mix corn starch with just enough water to make a paste the consistency of cream. My sauce never seems to thicken with out adding more than 2 tablespoons of cornstarch- so I use two heaping tablespoons. If you need to add more to get your sauce to thicken be sure and mix it with water first, so you don't get clumps- this sauce is very much like making a gravy.

Add water to the reserved cherry juice to make 2 cups of liquid, pour into a saucepan, and add 1 cup of sugar. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Add corn starch mixture slowly to the boiling sauce, stir constantly until thickened. When sauce has thickened remove from heat and add butter, flavor extract, and cinnamon. Serve warm over cherry cake. I cut the cake into 9 pieces.




This classic homemade dessert is sure to be a hit with your family, hope everyone gives it a try this summer!