Stupid old deer!

Well everyone, this is a eulogy to our wonderful Camry...

Yesterday, some crazy deer got crazy, and ran my pretty little wife off the road. Luckily, she's tough as nails, has a bajillion guardian angels, and walked away. We are truly blessed, and the Lord was really watching over her. I told you guys she was something special :)

Anyway, we loved our Camry, and he defended my wife very well in her moment of need. As you can see, the area over her head and around her is in pretty nice condition! She walked away with a little war wound though. A can of fruit decided to take a whack at her cheek, and she's a little swollen there. I think the deer threw the can at her, but we don't have any evidence of that. The coward deer is still no where to be found, but I'm looking... Ashley's back and neck are also quite sore, but we will be getting treatment for that as well.

Our Camry was first born in 2002 somewhere in Japan. We have good reason to believe, he was delivered by a stork to San Diego, because he was soon adopted by a wonderful couple in the San Diego, CA area. There he grew strong and wise until he migrated with his new family to Cool, CA where he was able to thrive in the higher altitude of the Sierra Mountains. In July of 2006, Camry came to our home. He had wonderful gas mileage, comfortable seats, a beautiful color, and amazing safety features. He never failed to deliver the desired responsibilities that he undertook on a daily basis. Needless to say, he was extremely loyal to Ashley. Soon on the morning of November 2nd, he knew he would have his loyalty put to the test...

As Camry saw the deer in his headlights, he instinctively positioned himself to ward off any damage to the front left driver's seat. He skidded, pushed, pulled, flipped, and careened until with his last breath he was able to somersault to safety. It wasn't easy, but he served faithfully, and we will forever be grateful. He sacrificed himself just to see his mistress to safety, all the while never thinking of himself. He always said that being able to deliver her to safety would be just reward in and of itself because he would know her to be safe. He was a true Samurai of the Road. And with that, he will leave a legacy for all future generations of the Stahle Fleet... We will see you again oh Noble Camry. Bless your little 4- cylinder engine. You will never be forgotten. May you rest in Peace...

Some new cuisines!!

Okay, I always enjoy trying new things when I go to China. Well this last trip, I was able to try 2 new dishes.... frog and pig lung. I also have a picture of a typical fish dish. I always laugh because the fish looks like it's talking to me...

Here is the frog dish. To be quite honest, it was one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. There were a lot of little bones, but the meat came right off :)

The pig lung looks horrible, but I had to taste it. I was surprised to find that it really didn't have much taste to it at all. It was rather fluffy... A little like chinese cake... without the iceing and sweet stuff :)

Fish is always served with the head on it in China. Actually, pretty much every animal I've ever eaten in China is served with the head still attached...

3 week old update...

Hi everyone!! I'm finally back from China, and have a few pictures of the kittens. They are a lot cuter now, and are starting to be come playful and move around a lot more. It's a blast. Zee prefers to keep them in the bedroom right next to our bed. Everytime we move them somewhere else in the house she will wait till we're not looking, and then grabb them by the neck and sprint back to the bedroom. It's quite comical. Here are the pics.

This is Ashley trying to make them squeak for the picture :)

They twitch a lot in their sleep, and kick each other in he head. It's hilarious. They can't sleep unless they are cuddled up. They are now just starting to get adventurous and leave the towel. They see us and start trying to waddle over to where we are.

You can see how much bigger they are compared to the night they were born. They sure grow quick. Now that they've opened their eyes, Ashley says that they are not ugly anymore :)

Free Kittens!!

Well we've been talking about Zee being pregnant for quite a while now. Well last night Zee brought 3 new babies into the world. It was fun to watch her try to figure out what was happening to her body as well.

She only made noise when a kitten popped out. It sounded like, " #@#$%$^$%&#$%@#$%#&(&% ". That's cat swear words, and I can't translate in a public forum like this. But it was something about "...hurting really bad... If I ever find you... don't touch me right now... What the..."

So we're now offering free kittens to anyone looking for a cute cat. We'll keep posting pics, so you see how cute they become. They will be available around the beginning of Dec. A perfect Christmas present for someone or your kids :)

Fun Photos

For a week in August I stayed with my sisters while my parents went to visit Dustin, Rachelle and Aidan in UT and go to Education week. It was a total blast. We partied hard the whole week. I told the girls they could have a sleep over on Friday night and invite as many people as they wanted. We only ended up with 7 friends, but it was fun. We had pizza, ate ice cream and had a Watermelon Derby. We carved boats out of watermelons and after an obstacle course had to push them with our noses to the other side of the pool and back. We had a blast.

Bundle and I made the evil boat. Yes, that's it's tongue hanging off the front.

Shelby and Brie's was cute, but it sank, so they lost...haaaahaaaa!

Brooke's going for the Lion Mane look. lol. It's all good though, because Brookie's team WON.

Gramma Geri and I also hung out with the cousins at Big Spoons. Kind of a ridiculous idea, paying for dessert by the pound?! No wonder Americans are obese! Speaking of which, have any of you
seen Super Size Me? Craziness!!! The guy went on a McDonald's diet for 30 days and ended up having a liver like an alcoholic...
When I came back from Cali, Dallas went home to see his family in Texas for Labor Day weekend. Ivan just got back from his mission to Switzerland, so it was a fun reunion. Sorry there aren't pictures to post on that. I kept the camera.

While Dallas was gone I hung out with Chelsie. She's from this area, so we hung out all weekend. She took me to Multnomah falls on Saturday...
and then we went to Pacific City on Monday and boogie boarded like crazy, before climbing the BEASTLY sand dune. Tell me this place doesn't look like Heaven on earth...pretty high up there with Maui...just wear a wet suit!

Then, to top it off we went to the Tillamook Cheese factory! Cheese Heaven baby! They also have the best white licorice flavored ice cream I've ever had in my life. Mom, you gotta come check it out! THE BEST.

3 yrs!

Here are a few pictures of the inside of the house. Our room and office aren't as tidy as they should be, so I'll post pictures of them later. :) We've been completely moved in for a couple of weeks now, we just have to finish organizing the garage and then we're good to go.

The living room

It was hard to get the whole room because there's a closet to my right, but this is the guest room, for anyone that wants to come visit! :)

Dallas has been Mr. Handyman these past few weeks. Here are some pictures of him replacing
the breaks on the Camry.

I just sat and watched. :) It was surprisingly very interesting.
Since then, he put in a cat door to the garage so Zee's litter box can remain OUT of the house. Next we just have to put in a shelf in the garage, so we can organize our stuff out there and we're good to go...of course we have lots more that we WANT to do, but we've got to have some moderation here. Lol.

Well Dallas and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary last Monday, August 6th. I can't believe it's already been 3 years. Time flies when you're having a blast! On the other hand, I don't really remember what it was like before we were married. We've sure packed a lot into 3 years, that's for sure. I graduated, we moved to China, then back to Provo, Dallas graduated then left for China on another internship, we moved to Medford, visited Texas, went to California a lot, and now we're in Newberg. I guess when you write it out, it doesn't feel like that much, but we've sure had some good times and great memories.

We went to the Street of Dreams on our anniversary to look at all the new multimillion dollar homes that were just built. It was so much fun!! I think I grabbed every free brochure they had for all the different decorating and building ideas. Here are some pictures of our favorite things.

This was Dallas' favorite. A putting green in the back yard. It looks even cooler in real life.

This house was beautiful!! Windows all over the place with lots of deck space. The perfect entertaining house. I absolutely loved this table.

Yeah baby! This is what I want. A gym in my house!

The view off of this balcony was FABULOUS!

I thought these chairs were a great idea. That way you can see who you are relaxing next to. :)


This picture doesn't do this spa justice. It's HUGE! Definitely added this to our wish list.
There was so much more to see and it was interesting to see the different designer ideas and set ups. Dallas and I agreed that we'd probably rather buy something that's already put together than build our own someday because there are so many decisions to make...who knows. It was really fun though.

cRaZy JULY!!!

Well Friends, we are BOTH finally living in the same place in our new home in Newberg, OR. Please feel free to come see us if you are ever driving through the Portland area. Here's a brief overview of July. We celebrated the Fourth separately again this year, but had a good time anyhow. Ashley was at Girls Camp for the 3rd and 4th with the awesome Medford 3rd Ward Young Women and Dallas was hangin' out in the new house starting to get things squared away. Then, on the 5th, Dallas came down to Medford and we went to go see the Moody Blues in concert at the Britt Festival in Jacksonville. They were AMAZING, and sounded as good as they do on their Days of Future Passed album singing Knights in White Satin!!

The concert was really awesome. The picture on the right is obviously not very good, but it was fun to see the diverse crowd there. There were people our age, all the way to people in their 80's just jammin'.

After the concert, we drove back to Newberg and spent the weekend unpacking the house.


To any and all who are able, we totally recommend packers and movers!! We were blessed to have Dallas' company pay for all of our relocation expenses, so the packers came and packed everything up and moved it out, then a week later they delivered everything and put all the big things in their proper places. (Of course Ashley had to move it around several times before deciding the final setup). :)

After unpacking the kitchen that weekend, we went back down to Medford for our last Sunday in the 3rd Ward, and then Ashley worked her last week for APS. Although, she is very excited to be opening the Portland branch for her boss in September, so her last week was really an "until September."

After her last day with APS in Medford, Ash drove up to Newberg for the final time!!! YAY!! We spent the weekend unpacking, shopping and setting up the house. It's been so much more fun for us to dream and talk about what we can do with OUR new house.

We then left for Cali and spent the next week with Ashley's family on their annual houseboat trip at Lake Oroville. It was awesome. Dad learned how to ride an air chair, the girls kicked butt at tubing and although we missed Heath's humor and spirit this year, we had a lot of fun. We took our camera, but weren't very good at pulling it out and taking pictures, so our apologies. Dustin and Rachelle and Aidan were able to make it, so that was a highlight for us. Little Aidan was so hilarious. For a 21 month old, he's sure got a large vocabulary. "Aidan drive boat!" I think was my favorite of the week.

Dallas and Dustin drove back up to Portland and Provo at the end of the trip on Sunday, and Ashley stayed for a week with Rachelle, Aidan and the fam. It was so fun to spend some more
time with them. Here are some cute pictures of Aidan.

Isn't he adorable?!

So, I haven't taken final pictures of the inside of the house because I'm still trying to figure out what to put on some walls, but in the next couple of days I will and I'll post some more. But, here's a picture of us after church today in front of our new house.

Zee's adjusting nicely to our new place, except she is upset we won't let her outside till she has her babies and gets fixed. If anyone wants a kitty, let us know!! Until next time! Love to all~

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.