March/Visitors Take 9

Ella had to do some adjusting to having a new animal in the house and still isn't thrilled about the idea. They are okay with each other as long as they are both sleeping....We did puppy class for the first month and have now moved on to obedience were we go each Tuesday. I swear the class is more for me than for Gypsy :) Oh yeah, and Gypsy has a boyfriend named Coltrane (black lab in picture)-she is so in love. I think the picture of the three pups lined up is pretty darn cute. We try to take the dog with us whenever possible and it has been a good thing, b/c we are seeing new places we haven't' seen yet. One day we drove up to Mt. Hood so Gypsy could be a true mountain dog and she got to romp around in the snow.

We had the opportunity to go to several really amazing concerts, but I must say that the Chieftains (a Celtic group) were by far my favorite. Their show was so full of excitement and they had these amazing Irish jig dancers that I was really impressed with. We also went up to Seattle and saw this group called the Ancient Orchestra and they played all the Bach Brandenburg concertos on instruments that were made when the music was composed. It was really interesting and educational to hear how different the pieces sounded using the instruments they were meant for. Bach is on my top list of composers so this was a neat experience.

Our good friends Beau & Danielle came up for another visit from the land of Flagstaff. Danielle is dying to move to Portland, but Beau just isn't on board yet...he wants to stay in Flagstaff for the rest of his life and for the life of me I can't figure out why. Silly Beau. It was nice that they had already been here so we could be a little more go with the flow this time. We went to Blazers game, Cannon Beach, the markets, and we drove them up to Seattle for the weekend and did all the tourist stuff there. Oh yeah, and we went on another ghost tour. Ghost people sure are odd and I don't really think words would do the outing justice. Oh the gum! That is a picture the world famous gum wall in Seattle just outside of Pikes Place. Gross!

February

Wow, so many months ago and a lot of stuff happened from what I can remember.

We added to new additions to our family:

1. A new 2009 Subaru Outback. We needed a new car for our dog...oh....at least that is what I kept telling Blake. So far we love it and it has been a fun car to take our road trips in and works out nicely with Gypsy in the back area. Oh, and it has butt warmers and think those are amazing. We are now true Oregonians, b/c I swear that half of the population drives Subarus here. Mead-you should come and bring yours!2. Gypsy Boots "Gypsy"! We flew to Chicago, drove to Lafayette, IN on a Saturday and then turned around the very next day and drove back to Chicago in a blizzard with our new puppy for our venture home. Our flight was so late getting in Seattle for our connecting flight that we had to rent a car and make the three hour drive south to Portland at 1am...needless to say it was a long journey for all, but I think we were all troopers. No peeing, barking or pooping on the plane, but Gypsy did vomit in Blake's hands :)

Christmas continued

i know, i'm totally late in doing this, but i thought i better get it done anyways.

blake and i spent our first christmas in portland this year and i must admit it was kind of nice being on our own. we had super yummy dinner at hotel in downtown portland and while we were eating we got to look out the window at the snow falling! a white christmas! we also go to see a performance of the nutcracker on christmas eve and that is always fun.

we didn't get a tree this year so here is a picture of the little christmas decorating that we did. blake sure is a funny one, he honestly will stand in front of the fire and look at the decorations while sipping on a glass of eggnog. seriously, who likes eggnog? gross!!! i love christmas ornaments so much! we have made a point to buy an ornament when we go out of town somewhere and it is was so fun to look at all of them and talk about our trips together when we were taking them out. we got the little reindeer that is in the front for our 1st christmas in oregon and i just think it is so dang cute.

(just had to include this picture of this snowman i saw with amy this week...check out the nice contoured booty. people sure get creative with their snow people!)

visitor take 8

want to know a great way to start out the new year? have a visit from ame! as most of you know i enjoy doing somewhat odd outings that most people might not find fun or enjoying, but my dear friend amy is also another one that likes the wacky, weird and unknown. we've had some pretty rotten weather here lately creating a bit of problem on the tourist front, but i sure had great time and i hope amy did too. thanks for coming ame! here is what we did on our weekend adventure (hope this helps you out amy). WARNING/DISCLAIMER: this is long list mostly for my own memory.

thursday

-picked ame up at the airport and went to Mcmenamin's for lunch where we got to watch glass blowing

-drove up to the View Point Inn and toured the rooms and looked out the very same windows that Victoria from the Twilight movie peered out of. Oh, this is also the play that the prom scene was filmed.

-got blasted by water at Wakeena Falls & Multnomah Falls (also in Twilight)

-ate dinner at Stanford's where amy feel in love with their bathroom, b/c it has a care kit containing lotion, mouthwash, etc.

-finally got to see Twilight the movie...i thought it was so silly, but at the same i LOVED it. we allowed blake, but he had to sit a couple seats away and laughing was not allowed by him and only us. for reals, i couldn't keep it in when edward sparkled or anytime Jasper came on screen.

-watched several enjoyable episodes of scrubs. oh for the love of scrubs!

friday

-had a marathon of a breakfast at the Tin Shed Cafe. when i say marathon i'm not kidding, it took us over two hours to get seated, order, eat and pay! it was good and all and the yummy rice poridge is always great, but i'm not sure if any breakfast is 2 hours plus worthy.

-toured Pittock Mansion (the place the Amazing Race ended at) and it was decorated for their Christmas season still as Twas the Night Before Christmas. Check out these totally creepy mannequins ....I seriously let out a pretty loud yelp when we walked in one of them. not to be forgotten, amy sweet talked the old tour guide man and he took us up on this really old elevator to view the top floor which is usually closed for most visitors.

-made a stop at the Velveteria to view wonderfully strange velvet paintings. um, as if there is a whole museum for such things, but very very funny!

-went to Trader Joe's to keep some dried bananas and fruit leather, filled up on gas where amy learned that in the state of Oregon we are not allowed to fill up our own gas. Funny enough, nobody has really been able to provide a firm answer as to way.

-grabbed some dinner at Bridgeport Brewing Co. before heading off to see the musical The Color Purple.

-drove out to farm are right next to Roloff Farms (aka Little People Big World) were we met a one hungry Blake for dessert at Rock Creek Tavern where we had to listen to a terribly loud cover band, but at least there was one weird dancer and someone playing air guitar!

Saturday

-woke up too early for our own good and had a gourmet breakfast at Casa De Allen consisting of grapefruit and Honeycombs

-took a beautiful drive to Tillamook in the snow and ice filled mountains where I had to get out and have amy drive, b/c i was just too dang nervous with her in the car with me. nobody will die or be injured on my watch while visiting us in Oregon!

-went on a self-guided tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory where we got learn about dairy's and cheese making. The factory was open so we got to watch the worker cut into 40lb blocks of cheese. We also ate a good helping of free cheese samples before enjoying some yummy Tillamook ice cream at 9:30a.-continued our journey to Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park (terrible name) were we got to feel like we were in the Twilight movie. the beach scenes from Twilight was filmed at Cannon Beach and come to find out this is also where the Goonie's beach scenes takes place!

-our road trip went on to Seaside where we got to see where Lewis & Clark finished their journey and amy got a good amount of salt water taffy from the Candy Man. in the taffy shop they play the Candy Man song from Willi Wonka on a continuous loop and the girl told us that on average she hears it over 41,000 times a year! i would go crazy people!

-drove onto Astoria where we went across a very large bridge to Washington and back that crosses the Columbia River at the mouth of the Pacific.

-took a tour of the Flavel Mansion (also in Goonie's) where we got to learn about a sea captain and see beautiful items from the Victoria era.

-viewed the Astoria Column, the Goonie's House, and the school where Kindergarten Cop was filmed, got sandwiches at Safeway (yes, i did say Safeway and they were really good), and visited the friendly sealions at the pier

-drove back to Portland and went across the St. John's bridge on our way to the Tea Zone where they have lots of yummy different drinks.

-saw the play A Tuna Christmas at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts

-i had amy drive again so she could do the parallel parking since i cannot (i really need to get on top of that) to go Voodoo Donuts at one of the most seedy places ever and we left smelling like grease, but it was worth the experience.

-drove home in some pretty thick fog which set the perfect tone for our viewing of a scary movie out our house which freaked us all out.

wow, now that sure was a detailed list, but there it is. hope you had a fun time ame and ella is sure missing you...now who is she to yell at?

visitors take 7/christmas concert continued/arctic blast

this sunday the portland area had something the news keeps calling an arctic blast. well, it appeared to be pretty harmless, but after driving a few miles on the freeway we had to get off and buy chains. fun. putting on chains is fun....um, no. basically, the whole portland area is covered in one big sheet of ice with very little pretty snow to show for it. are you asking why we didn't just stay home? well, ben wright came to town on sunday night for an interview at OHSU for a pediatrics program and he stayed with us. a drive that usually only takes 30 minutes ended up taking 2 hours. oh, and chains make TONS of noise! seriously, i thought my car was falling apart when we first started driving with them, b/c they were so loud! anyhow, after we picked up ben we went to a concert by the trail band as part of our christmas concert series. they were so amazing and fun! they played a lot of celtic christmas tunes with a huge variety of instruments and we all really enjoyed the show. i think they will be a new tradition for us each december. i didn't get any pictures of visitor number 7 or the trail band...i'm lame.

concert series dec 2008

since we're going to be flying solo for christmas this year up here in oregon we decided we needed to make sure we tried our hardest to do christmas things on our own. as part of this task we decided to go to as many holiday concerts as possible. great for me because i LOVE christmas music and so far blake is being a trooper. we're mixing it up with different genres of music and it is proving to be very fun.

the first in our concert series was seeing the Von Trapp Family Children with the Oregon Symphony. yes, they are the REAL Von Trapp's! Can you believe it? I didn't even know that the Von Trapp story was real. the children performed christmas songs and songs from the Sound of Music. they are the grandchildren of the youngest boy portrayed in the movie named Kurt. imagine that! i'll tell you this....they were not nearly as good as the singers in the movie, but it was still fun all the same.the second concert we got to enjoy was an amazing concert by the Portland Cello Project. so far they are one of my favorite finds since we have lived here. the are an indie cello group as funny as that may sound. at their concerts they do songs with different artist and collaborate with them for a really unique show. the concert was at my favorite venue the Aladdin and it had a fantastic theme...they asked everyone to wear very ugly holiday sweaters so a huge portion of the audience was walking around with santa, rudolph, snowflakes, etc across there chest.more to follow....

visitors take 6/thanksgiving 2008

happy very belated thanksgiving...at least know i was thinking of everyone on turkeyday!

we got to spend our first thanksgiving in portland this year and it was nice just having a small dinner with some good company, but it was a little weird not being in arizona or new mexico. we were lucky enough to have alexi and edi come down for a couple of nights to spend the holiday with us. it was edi's first american thanksgiving so the pressure was on! at least he didn't really know what to expect, but think all and all it turned out okay. oh, alexis is a fan of the macy's day parade, and i think i watched more of it this year than i have my whole life....i still don't understand why it is cool. i did try making a few new items this year and my favorite were the popovers. seriously, they were so easy and were really yummy. thanks barefoot contessa for the simple recipe and thanks edi and alexis for slaving away in I-5 traffic on a very busy driving day!oh, and the picture of alexis and edi is at the Pittock Mansion where the amazing race DID end! Happy Holidays!