YTVotD - Romney likes lakes

Guest-starring for YouTube is the NYTimes today:

Sorry it's cropped a bit.

PDX Pix - April 2012

April photos are dominated by kitchen remodel progress, sorry.  We are also enjoying our first spring here in the PNW - things are so green and towards the end of the month everything started exploding with blooms of all colors!  

Signs of spring...

 Got to go to a Blazers game at the Rose Garden!  Fun, but not relevant in terms of the playoff picture.  Interesting how different it was than watching an intense college game.  

 Beautiful pastoral countryside SW of us, explored on a bike ride.

 The starting point of the puzzlehunt that friends Cathy and Marc came up from the Bay Area to do with us.  With their help we were the 2nd best team (out of 20ish) in Portland!  No hints needed!  Good job, Marc.

With the news that Matt Groening revealed Springfield of Simpsons fame to be in Oregon (based on his childhood in Portland), I thought I'd hunt down his sidewalk art, etched into the concrete near his high school.

We have some a resident duck couple that lives in our front yard...

Spring in the Japanese Gardens

Kate holding our newest baby friend, Noah Grace!

 Cathy and Marc working on the final meta-puzzle at the McMenamins in St John's.  Any puzzlehunt is improved by stopping at a brewery...

 We watched Rufus for a couple weeks, but he missed his owners...

 Easter/Passover trip to Seattle - we got an invite to a Seder with Cara's family.  It was a fun, delicious experience!

Some of the symbolic items of a Seder - the story of the orange is kind of neat.

Kate cooking an inaugural crepe breakfast to break in the new kitchen!

And now for some more kitchen shots:

 

 Kitchen progress - walls out, cabinets in

 

Prep for staining

 Staining lots of shelves and doors!

 Kitchen progress - cabinets stained

 Countertop and sink in!  We went with a quartz countertop.  Seems nice.

More in May! (or probably June...)