Lake Cascade hike

A few weeks ago we drove up to Lake Cascade to go hiking. It had been quite a while since we had been hiking, so it sounded fun! Unfortunately, to get to any decent trails you have to drive at least an hour and a half away. 

We had a student from France staying with us for a few days, so we thought it would be nice to take him out and show him the area a little. 

We picked up some sandwiches for lunch and started our drive north. We stopped at one park and ate a picnic by the lake. The weather was nice by the lake - not too hot and not too cold. We had planned on hiking after lunch, but the park we were at was super smokey (there were some huge wildfires pretty close to us) so we drove a little farther and found this trail.  

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is? We were debating on whether it was an eagle or a hawk. It soared like an eagle, so we thought maybe a golden eagle? But I don't know for sure.

We only came across a few people, so we liked that it wasn't crowded, unlike the trails in Boise. The scenery was definitely nice too, although it would have been better without all of the smoke!
I think we would all like to go back up there sometime. 

Do you like hiking?

Five for Friday

Hey and welcome to my Five for Friday! I hope you all had a great week! I am linking up with Della Devoted, Cup of Tea, Bright on a Budget and Coffee With Caitlin!

1. Well, as I am sure you've noticed, there is a new blog layout! I was getting a little tired of the old one and have been thinking about redoing it for a while. I've spent the last couple of days designing, editing, and fixing everything, so I hope everyone likes it! I tried looking around for some inspiration, but everyone seems to be doing the boring black and white look. I wanted some color! And I added a button on the side if anyone is interested in one!

2. My mom's birthday was last Friday and one of the things I got for my mom was a bag of Lindt chocolates. We all really like Lindt chocolate, so everyone really liked this gift! They had several different gift bags you could pick from, and then you can select 3 different flavors to fill a bag with 75 chocolates! I picked the orange, raspberry, and salted caramel. Definitely a great gift idea!

3. It seems kind of crazy that it is September already! I am pretty happy that it is almost fall. The temperatures have cooled slightly here, it's only supposed to be in the 70's next week. Which is okay with me! Bring on the cooler weather! And I'm looking forward to fall TV. Haha!

4. In case you missed it, I shared a tutorial on how to make cold brewed coffee. If you've never had cold brewed coffee, you should try it, it's pretty good ;)

5. I came across this website that has a bunch of free printable vintage maps. I printed out the one of the British Isles and I really like it! The quality is great and I want to print out the one of Paris next!

Hope you have a great weekend!

How to make cold brewed coffee

So you want to make cold brewed coffee? It's super simple! No need to spend $4-$5 at Starbucks or even more money for a jug from the store. All you need is a few ingredients!

Coffee - either whole coffee beans or ground coffee
Filtered water
Jar with lid (I used a mason jar with these lids)
Cheesecloth
4 cup glass measuring cup

1. Start off by measuring out 1/2 cup coffee beans and grinding them in a coffee grinder. (You can use more or less beans depending on how strong you like your coffee.) 1/2 cup coffee beans will get you a little under 2/3 cup ground coffee. 

2. Pour your coffee grounds into a large mason jar, then pour in about 3 - 3 1/2 cups of water. 

3. Screw the lid on, then give the jar a few shakes to mix the grounds around. 

4. Leave the jar on the counter for 18 - 24 hours, shaking occasionally. 

5. After the 18 - 24 hours, pour the coffee and grounds into the glass measuring cup. Then rinse any remaining grounds from the jar. 

6. Cut a piece of cheesecloth large enough to cover the opening of the jar with about an inch or so extra around the outside. You need to make sure you can form an indentation in the cheesecloth and still be able to hold the cheesecloth so it doesn't fall inside the jar. 

7. Carefully pour the coffee and grounds through the cheesecloth, so it strains out the grounds from the coffee. 

8. You can either drink the coffee right away, or put it in the fridge for a few hours to completely chill. 

Otherwise, fill a glass with some ice, pour the coffee in and then add milk or creamer.

If the coffee is too strong, you can add more water to dilute it some.

Enjoy!

Sunset

On our way back from Washington, we had stopped in Pendleton, Oregon for some dinner before continuing on our way back to Boise. As we were leaving, we noticed the sun was just starting to set. Eastern Oregon is extremely flat and boring. Mostly all plains and hardly any hills or anything. 

But just east of Pendleton is Deadman Pass (pleasant name, isn't it?) It's a pretty steep pass and goes up quite a bit in elevation. We reached the top and pulled into the lookout point to watch the sun set. 

I had never seen a sunset quite like this one and I am glad I had my camera available to take some pictures!

Five for Friday

Hey and welcome to my Five for Friday! I hope you all had a great week! I am linking up with Della Devoted, Cup of Tea, Bright on a Budget and Coffee With Caitlin!

1. I finally got some new running shoes. They were much needed! I had purchased some Nike's a little over a year ago and was extremely disappointed with the quality. They completely wore out in less than a year. So I went back to Asics and am happy with those! I really like the color of these ones too!

2. While we were in Washington I picked up a few things from Ikea. I just really like how inexpensive everything is and the stuff is just so great. I really like Ikea ;)

3. Today is my mom's birthday so we have a few fun things planned for today. I made a cake last night and we are going to go out to eat and do some shopping today! Should be fun! And the whole family is home so that will be nice.

4. Best deal of the week! We were at Walmart earlier this week (my sister needed a graphing calculator for school) and we were walking through the toy section and there was a bunch of clearance toys and this box of Legos was there. We were shocked that it was only $10! Talk about a steal! My sister got a great deal on it!

5. I finished this book this past week. It was SO good! It's a mystery/suspense book about a forensic artist. I've been having a hard time finding good books anymore and I really liked this one! I would definitely recommend it!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Flower garden

My grandparents always have a ton of flowers growing in their gardens. I always enjoy checking out the garden and taking pictures of all of their pretty flowers! This time I was able to get some pictures of the hummingbirds as well. (My grandma always has hummingbird and bird feeders out.)

(And in case you want to see more flower pictures, here are some I took this past spring at my grandparents house.)