YTVotD - Physics!

PDX Pix - November 2012

November is apparently when the rains come in full-force here in Portland (although my parents might argue that started during their visit in October).  Fortunately, we had plenty to keep us busy, between trips, family visits, holidays, friends, and a lot of inside house work.

We did a ton of door sanding and painting.  I think Kate's expression basically sums up how we feel about sanding and painting doors now (and we still have 2 more to do!  arghghg!), but they certainly look a lot nicer now.

Banjo is of course always alert to occasions that might result in him getting a bit of something yummy...

Speaking of yummy, we had a chance to make fresh apple cider at a friend's house, using this cider press contraption!  Fresh cider is amazingly sweet.  Yum.

Around my birthday we took our first trip back to the Bay Area and had a wonderful time visiting good friends and old colleagues.  Kate even got a "Banjo" tattoo!  See?  Photographic evidence.  Thanks for hosting us, friends.

Some shenanigans happened

I don't think about it that often up here in the NW, but I really did enjoy the sunny CA weather down there.  Here's Central Park in Santa Clara on Veteran's Day.

Back at home we had a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving with friends.  Kate wrestles with the turkey.

Back to work!  We found out we primed latex over this old oil-based paint and it was peeling off.  Lesson learned.  So we had to sand/scrape off all the primer in this room area.  Blargh.

In Seattle for actual Thanksgiving, we went to the amazing Chihuly installation at Seattle Center.  There is some very mesmerizing art there, here are some of my favorites:

Kate's sister and Dad pondering one giant piece

"Persian Ceiling"

Kate and one of the nieclings

Outside in the garden

As is kind of our tradition now, we went out to cut ourselves this particular Grand Fir to imbue our house with the scent of the most pungent tree we could find post-Thanksgiving.  Kate had to get up close and personal with the tree in order to liberate it.

And the lights are on!

Painting the master bedroom upstairs

And we're exhausted!  Time to relax after all that sanding and painting and eating and traveling!  Although something tells me December will include a lot of the same...

Merry Christmas, everyone - see you in 2013!

PDX Pix - October 2012

October!  Fall is here.  Banjo enjoyed the treasured last sunbeams before we get socked in here in the Northwest.

Anonymous came out for a Calobo concert that was fun time.  A says he sang 100% of the lyrics during the ~2.5 hour show...  Good time.  Here's a shot from the show at the Crystal Ballroom.

We also made a deliciously decadent German Chocolate cake for Cara's birthday!  Yommm.

And of course gave Banjo some attention.  As you can see, our dog is pretty stressed out and high-energy these days...

Come back and visit again soon, A!

We took a trip up to Mt. St. Helens, but unfortunately picked the first rainy weekend to do so.  As such, the view was not what it sometimes is, but Kate was apparently still excited about it.

 

It did clear up a bit here and there, so here's the bottom half of the bottom half of the volcano.  It is a good visitor center and I'd like to go back and explore around some more.  Quite a bizarrely barren and affected landscape, but also amazing how much nature has come back in 30 years.

 Us, Dustin, and baby Noah on a hike.

 This is what October is like, I guess.  Sun still trying to hang in there, but the rains are clearly taking over.

Halloween at the office - we decorated our cube area for trick-or-treaters that parents brought in.  I think my fake legs legitimately frightened some poor kids!  Some of them came up and kicked them to make sure it wasn't real...

My parents visited and made the most of a cold, rainy week!  We still went out and about and saw some sights, including the requisite trip to Multnomah Falls.  They even took a couple day trip to the coast.

They helped a lot with painting and sanding, thanks guys!

 See you next month!  Happy Thanksgiving week, everybody*!

* - by "everybody" I mean all 4 of you that maybe still happen upon this blog, and Anonymous who will clearly point out any chronological errors within 8 minutes of my posting this.  :)

PDX Pix - September 2012

September.  Indian summer here in Portland.  Some of the highlights:


Made lots of fruit "extracts" from the large quantities of Yakima fruit that Anonymous brought from Yakima.  These are basically simple syrups made out of fruit pulp instead of water.  We mix them with seltzer to make delicious semi-sodas.  Flavors include lime, apricot, cherry, peach...


We finished installing the kitchen cork tile floors!  As you can see the closet area provided some frustrating difficulties (exaggerated here for effect) but probably no one will ever look closely in there.  Now to cut and install the shoe-round and baseboards...


Yet another clear day from Council Crest - lots of people out for the view.



And the raspberries kept coming and coming!  One of my favorite qualities of our house...  I love getting a handful of fresh berries to put on cereal every morning.  Alas, they are pretty much done now.  And as you saw, Banjo seems to like them as well.



Speaking of the garden, we successfully did some plumbing repair after one of these old PVC junctions started leaking.


We went to Newport (coast) with D+C+N to visit D's parents, and had some fun walks on the beach

Meanwhile...

(I had added text for all the below pictures but somehow it got lost and the post reverted back to a draft...  maybe I'll update them later but for now just use your imagination for captions.)