HoUsE oF mYsTeRy!

So, here's an update on the Stahle Fam. Dallas currently lives at the Holiday Inn in Wilsonville and is enjoying his per diem for food that allows him to eat like a king. He's also enjoying his new job as a Manufacturing Engineer for Tyco Electronics. He will travel less to China, but be able to work with the China migration of electronic medical cable assemblies (things used for surgery, patient monitoring, ultrasounds, catheters, etc.), AND will ONLY have to travel about 3-4 times a year for a couple of weeks. Ashley is very grateful to have a husband that enjoys what he does, while still being able to live in the US with her. Although, with all of the miles that Dallas racked up going back and forth to China this last year, we got two round trip tickets to Taiwan!!! We are going for a week in November and so are excited to see Dallas' old stomping grounds of his mission. Ashley is particularly excited to try the food there that Dallas raves about so much, especially the zhenzhu drinks, what the Simmons clan so lovingly termed the "snot ball smoothies". :) And, not to forget the PHENOMENAL Taiwanese peanut butter, for those of you that have had it, you KNOW we speak the truth. So, that's exciting. We leave on Ashley's birthday and will be spending Thanksgiving there.

Ashley is finishing things up with Advanced Personnel Solutions in Medford and will be moving to Newberg with Dallas towards the middle of July. She is sad to leave and has learned a ton, but hopes to welcome some good opportunities up North.

Things are moving along nicely with our new house. We are waiting on just a few odds and ends, but may be able to close escrow sooner than July 3rd, which would be nice. The packers are coming to pack up the Medford house on the 27th, the movers come to move it all on the 29th, and they'll drop it all off and unpack it in Newberg on July 6th. We are excited to have professional packers come!

Other than that, business, work, church and everything else is all super! We hope some of you comment so we can keep in touch with everyone. (Disclaimer: Ashley messed with the comments a little while back and accidently made it so they all had to be moderated before they were posted...that's why none were showing up. But, Dallas came to the rescue, so all's well, sorry for the lack of response on our end if you left a comment...they were stuck in blog space).

So for more pictures....Dallas comes home every weekend so it breaks up the "long distance relationship" status, and we go on dates. Two weekends ago we went camping as you can see below, and last weekend we went to the Oregon Vortex/House of Mystery. It's crazy weird. It's a spherical field of force, half above the ground and half below the ground. According to www.oregonvortex.com, it goes way back to the time of the Native Americans. Their horses would not come into the affected area, so they wouldn't. The Native Americans called the area the "Forbidden Ground". Many years before The House of Mystery was built it was noted that unusual conditions existed there. It completely throws you off, because proven scientific theories we learn about in school, are reversed within the vortex. Go visit the website for more info, but here are a few pictures.


Obviously, you can't sense the direction of the ball, but we rolled this ball down the ramp, then it just rolled right back up. We also tried it inside the house with Dallas' chapstick, just in case they were using a tricky ball, and the vortex caused it to do the same thing.

This part bugged me. So the tour guide lady lined up all the children from tallest to smallest after showing us that her level proved that the ground was level. (They had levels all over for that kind of proof).
Then she lines them up smallest to tallest, and you expect to see the same type of angle as before, just in the opposite direction, but NO....look how much more slanted it is. Now, I know some of you skeptics will blame the phenomenon on my picture taking abilities, or the lines and angles of the house in the background, but Dallas and I stood on the plank and felt the difference as we walked towards and away from each other...TRIPPY. Here's one more....

These are some pretty sweet 7' posts. Again, we saw using a level that the ground was level. Each post was measured with a tape measure, and each was 7' tall, but looking at them the one on the right looks smaller. When people stood by the one on the right and walked to the one on the left you could see them get shorter, but they measured the same on each 7' post...It really was fascinating. We enjoyed our little tour out in the boonies of Gold Hill, Oregon last Saturday.

High Comedy

It's pretty funny to see Zee in all her glory. Ashley had so much fun bathing Zee, that she decided to take some pictures too. Her fur is very deceiving. She's only 5 pounds, and hasn't grown in the last 6 months, but you don't realize it till they are wet.

Even though she seems hormonal all the time, she really is quite a cuddly kitty. However, we think she's pregnant, so we'll see how long that lasts, or if she ends up being more mellow. We'll keep you posted if we have new kitties. Anybody looking for a baby kitten?

We went camping last weekend with Tim and Anja and had a total blast! The weather was a little overcast, but we got to do some fishing and had a good time chatting around the campfire.
Here's the view of the lake from our campsite. It was so beautiful out there.

Anja and I went out in the middle of the lake to fish in her sweet boat. It was lots of fun and very relaxing. The sun was tricky that day. It was so overcast and rainy that we couldn't wear our swimsuits, but my face got pretty burned.

Anja and Tim's friends Lissa and Jeremy have 3 adorable kids. They were so fun to be with and made us laugh a lot. They were great cheerleaders when we played horseshoes!

Tim was our master Chef out there. Here's a picture of him making chili in the dutch oven. We ate it with bread bowls and it was Yuummeee. Then we had chocolate peach cobbler for dessert, which was also FABulous. GO TIM!

My feet are always cold. Just ask Dallas. No matter how warm the rest of my body is, I always try to burrow my feet where it's warm. I was warming my feet by the fire, and the glue on the bottom of my Nike's melted, so the sole of my shoe is barely hanging. Good thing they're grubbies. Go me!

So, how cool is it that a group of "seasoned campers" makes breakfast for the whole campsite? They went all out and we loved it as you can see. :)

Dallas and Chase were buds. Cute kids.