Pastaing

Last weekend we had some friends over to make pasta. The first round of dough was a bit tough to work with but the pumpkin pasta dough rolled out like a dream. We laminated a few of them too so they looked all full of herb confetti.

We had dessert before dinner, multiple cups of tea, attempted to see a Harry Potter  set in an alley in our neighborhood but were diverted by the 200 person line.

It was a lovely sunny Sunday.

Gussying up Gloria

Decorating Gloria was much warmer than chopping her down. I love how the tall skinny tree looks in our apartment. She doesn't have many branches but we managed to fill her up pretty well. Joshua added lights to the banister and we had candles lit. We spend the afternoon making Christmas cookies and cups of tea. Our little apartment's coziness is at it's maximum now.

Getting Gloria

We took Walter out in Washington for the first time this past weekend. We've spent a lot of time giving him some love and then over Thanksgiving he was in the shop getting de-rusted and a bottom line of rhino paint. We were eager to get him out but the trip went a bit differently than it was going to go in our heads. He still badly needs new tires so all the forest roads we knew of to sleep on had too much snow for us to gamble him on. So at midnight we finally found a state park to plop him into. We turned on our twinkle lights and hung out for a bit but went to sleep pretty quickly after parking.

It was a pretty darn cold night. Sleeping was okay but in the morning we busted out the little propane heater Joshua had brought. We finally got a chance to make coffee and toast some bagels in our van. Watched a movie huddled under blankets. The morning was actually quite lovely.

The afternoon was back to a struggle of finding a road we could park Walter on where we could also legally cut down a tree. After quite the search and frustration we found one. The little road was lovely, and quiet. We picked out an almost 6' tall, our tallest ever, skinny little lady that we named Gloria. This year we thought ahead and brought a small saw. It is actually the saw I got for school to cut balsa wood, worked better than we thought. We had a lovely cheese and cracker lunch in Walter then headed home to warm up.

Wasn't the smooth relaxing outing either of us imagined but it was still nice to get outside and feel the cold air on our cheeks. Next up new tires for Walter!

Jay Leathergoods

I had the honor of setting up a booth of my leathergoods a few weeks ago. I was in a space with about 15 other makers, free wine and appetizers, and lots of lovely people. It was the first time I've shown off my stuff so I was super excited. Also extraordinarily nervous. I wore the apron my mom made me with pockets to stow money and ordered a credit card payment method, but had no idea if anyone would buy anything. Mostly I was excited to see what people thought and to have a reason to finish all my projects.

The night though went SUPER well! I had lots of customers, coworkers came down, friends came down and took me to drinks after to celebrate. There were tons of people milling about and they said such kind things about my work. It was so cool to see them showing off what they'd bought to other people as the night went on and hearing their comments. I couldn't have asked for it to go better.

Lots of people have asked if I sell online, I haven't quite gotten that fancy yet. I do however have an Instagram @jayleathergoods and an email jayleathergoods@gmail.com that I accept orders through!

Plus my friend's shop, Urban Earth, sells a small selection of my creations :)

Katy Kats

We did a lot of casual hanging out once we were in Denver. We ate fancy donuts, got tacos, walked around in the sunshine, found fun and sunny places to eat outside, walked around the parks, took some naps. The one thing we did plan was going to the Katy Perry concert. We were very very excited. We had tier 3 tickets but no one was seated in front of us - until - we walked up the stairs and were diverted to a woman giving out better tickets. We ended up in row 1, like THE row 1. It was fabulous. I've never been to a really big concert, mostly small shows and small productions. This was amazing. There were dancers running all over, a huge lion head, she flew on a planet towards us, lots of confetti, giant lips that opened and closed, she was in the air multiple times. It was a great night. We very much enjoyed it!

Colorado Frozen lakes & Glaciers

We hiked in the snow a lot in Colorado. We were very glad we flew our crampons/spikes with us. Lots of people were slipping and sliding up the icy hills and we were just chatting and passing them with awesome traction. They grimaced at us a bit.

After Thanksgiving we hike to a frozen lake, Loch Lake, it was at about 10,200 ft. One of the fourteener mountains was right next to it. The day was sunny and kind of warm so it was a really pleasant hike. The lake was stunning, frozen enough you could walk on it but not so frozen it was also covered in snow. We ate snacks on a rock in the middle of the lake and I couldn't resist stripping off my spikes to skate around a bit. That night back at our cabin we had leftover stuffing, played games and read our books. It was slow and cozy. We aren't the best at slow but we really embraced it this trip.

Then on our last day at the cabin we went to St. Mary's Glacier, again very very glad to have the spikes. It was a short hike to the lake, pleasant, sunny again. The lake wasn't quite frozen so there were icebergs floating in it. I looked up and saw the glacier, there were a few people walking up a tidbit on on and a few others skiing down some of it. Then a huge gust of wind picked up the loose powder and blew it all over them. I said I'm not going on that thing, I'm happy to look at it.

Next thing you know we walked up to just go to the base of it. Then we just wanted to go to where everyone else was standing. Then we were full on trudging our way to the top of the darn thing. When the wind would blow the loose snow I'd turn around, shiver a bit, and keep going. I don't know why I went except that once I started I felt committed, and curious. We'd never hiked on a glacier, just near them. The textures the wind created in the snow were stunning. Once we were out of view of the base of it you felt you were on another planet a bit. It was cold but the sun kept it bearable. We made it pretty far, about 12,000 ft. The wind was pretty persistent at that point and I was worried about it making it hard to breath so we turned around. In the end I'm glad we hiked on the frigid glacier, and once we were off the sun warmed us right back up.

After that we headed into the city to our cute little airbnb.

6th Annual Campsgiving

We embarked on our 6th Campsgiving trip this year! I think this is our favorite tradition. This year we headed to Colorado. We flew into Denver and grabbed a car to head to Golden Gate Canyon State park where we had a cozy cabin waiting for us. We were afraid of the temperature being super low like it was a few years ago, when we froze in a yurt, but it turned out to be high 60's the whole time we were there!

Thanksgiving morning we headed out to a little 4 mile hike. We couldn't fly with our snowshoes, too big, but we did bring our spikes. They made it super easy to ascend the hill and the snow was low so it worked out perfectly. We wandered around the Estes park hike for a few hours, took in some sweeping views until the sun started to fade.

Headed back to our cabin to start the Thanksgiving feast. I accidentally got sweet potatoes instead of red potatoes but they still mashed up into a delicious mashed potato. We had smoked turkey with gravy, roasted garlic mashed sweet potatoes, sausage stuffing, and roasted Brussel sprouts with leeks. The trick is to get it all done at the same time and the fact that we're doing it over a fire makes it a little stressful but we did pretty good this year. It was all super tasty and we had enough left for a sausage stuffing leftover dinner the next night, our favorite part.

because I love looking back
campsgiving 5
campsgiving 4
campsgiving 3
campsgiving 2
campsgiving 1