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PDX Pix - January 2013 (plus Erin/Jim wedding)

In January we had a couple fun snowshoeing trips, some snowy skiing in Colorado, saw the world snow sculpture championships in Breckenridge, and Erin and Jim's winter wedding near Rocky Mountain National Park (technically it was in February, but I'll include them here).  I guess it was a snow-themed month! 

Sunny winter day at Mt Tabor park

 Kate and Cara share tea at our British-themed Downtown Abbey season 3 start party.  I made baked lemon pudding!  And we had shepherd's pie... does that count?

Kate loves her new (replacement for long-lost old) rainbow hat! Thanks Wendy.

 

 Our getups for the FEI holiday party - "Disco" Themed.  Goodwill provided most of the clothing items.

 

 Dinner of spaetzle, schnitzel, and dill pickle soup at our neighborhood Bavarian restaurant.  Super yummy!  Did I mention the dill pickle soup?  Certain pickle-loving relatives should come flocking to this place.  The recipe is on their website, too.

 Using the blue van to transport our new family of houseplants back home

 

 Snowshoeing out of White River, Mt. Hood in the background

 Kate leaps off a snowbank

 Other snowshoe trip - this one was with a colleague who works with a group that does wildlife monitoring near Mt. Hood.  We went out to service two heat-activated cameras out in the woods.  Unfortunately, the only pictures we got were some other snowshoers that found it and a skunk.  Here co-worker Neil lashes the bait (deer meat) to the tree and Kate looks on. 

 Crossing a snowy bridge

 Here we are in Rocky Mt Nat'l Park with Amanda, Jeff, and Frank.  We did a short hike before Erin and Jim's wedding.  So pretty up there with some fresh snow, but it sure was windy!

 Baby Calvin (3 mos) and Kate

 Michael and Amanda, our two extra-smart friends who, as of May 2nd, will both have been on an aired episode of Jeopardy!  Michael was on a couple years ago and won once (!) and Amanda filmed hers recently and it airs in May.  She's sworn to secrecy. How cool, huh?

 Kate and Emily with their dueling sciencey shirts at the rollerskating party

 Skiing at Keystone - For Emma!

 Sarah and Frank in our big rental house at the YMCA of the Rockies

 This was the winning entry (Mongolia) of the international snow sculpting competition in Breckenridge.  They started with a big cube of snow, and the results were amazing.  Sadly, a couple had collapsed before the judging.  Somewhat comically, they were entries from the Ecuadorian, Mexican, and (some other tropical nation, I forget) teams.

 Erin and Jim's wedding!  It was cold and windy but no snow!

 Before we all went to the airport, Derek got a chance to ride the saddle seat at Kate's house.

PDX Pix - December 2012

Yikes!  Over a month late on these!  Here is some of what we were up to in December.

Pre-Christmas in Portland:

Sunset over the park near my office

Powder day in the trees at Meadows (Mt. Hood)

Our "Mars"-themed gingerbread house from the annual Christmukkah party.  If you look closely you can see the martian made of broccoli, the nuclear reactor with blue cooling pool, the satellite dish on the roof, and a rover.  Not visible are the Reeses-powered rockets on the back.

Painting the fireplace!  We figured out we liked the look if we painted the mortar cracks a slightly darker shade than the rock itself - turns out way better than everything a constant color.  This is after having primed everything and painted the cracks the same color as the background wall (darker accent).

We explored a neighborhood known for its good Christmas lights, and this was one of the more curious installations...  any ideas what they were going for here?

Kate enjoying the basically finished living room.  Yes, the curtains are still held up with spare electrical wire, but you can't see that from here.

Ebel Family Christmas in Denver:

At the park swingset near the lake

Cooking with Corinne, Christmas eve.  I got potato-mashing duty.

A beautiful blanket of snow fell to give us a white Christmas!

Catherine and Kate, with Kate rocking the retro-70s shades

Playing King of Tokyo with the nieces and nephews.

Post-Christmas Road Trip, Denver-to-Portland:

     After Christmas our plan was to fly to Florida to visit my family, but due to a perfect storm of illnesses we called that trip off.  We were (and are!) sad to have missed out on a visit but with most everyone in bed not feeling their best it was probably the wise move.  So instead, we drove the Ebel's new-ish VW camper van back from Denver to Portland over 3 days to deliver us and an extra bed of theirs back to our house.  The plan is they wanted to do the road trip in March anyways, and this way they will only have to do it one way and we get a ride home!  We made the most of an impromptu adventure and had some good sights, hikes, food, and fun along the way.

Here's our vehicle, I think parked at a Walmart in Provo, UT.  We drove into the night and used the Walmart lots as our campgrounds for a few hours of sleep here and there.  It was usually around 10 deg at night so we did not pop the top and instead slept on the mattress we were transporting in the back of the van.

Entering Utah - beautiful landscape that could have been the moon or some other planet.

Arches NP off in the waning sunlight

We did a quick hike around North, South, and Tower Arches before we ran out of light.  It happened to be the day that the largest full moon of the year was rising directly through some arches so there were lots of photographers waiting in the cold to get some special shots. I'd love to go back and explore more, what a neat place.

Kate and Tower Arch

Sunset at Arches

After a stop for dinner in Moab and an overnight in Provo, we stopped in Salt Lake City to have breakfast and explore the FLDS-centric downtown plazas and architecture.  It's a nice pedestrian-friendly area and there was still a lot of Christmas-y festiveness in place. 

This is the very odd "Jesus in the cosmos" upper floor chamber in one of the visitor centers.  Very odd.  The pictures don't really capture the full strangeness of it all.

Singing carols in the (completely empty) tabernacle building

A later stop at Twin Falls, ID.  What an impressive set of waterfalls!  The snow on the ground made things pretty too. 

The falls is also a mile or two away from the site where Evel Knievel attempted his famous Snake River Canyon rocket-cycle jump (which failed).  We walked/trudged through the snow to see the launch site, which turned out to be this pile of dirt on the other side of a fence on private land.  Kind of disappointing.  But at least we got a good hike to stretch our legs 2 days into our journey!  

We should have read the wikipedia entry first, I guess: "Twin Falls became the center of national attention in September 1974 thanks to an attempt by Evel Knievel to jump the Snake River Canyon in a specially-modified rocket cycle. Watched by millions on television, the attempt ultimately failed due to high winds and a premature deployment of Knievel's parachute. The foundation of the launch ramp, which lies on private land, can still be seen."

Later that evening we stopped at a hot springs in Thousand Springs, ID.  Turned out to be a big indoor swimming pool that also had somewhat sketchy "rent by the hour" private hot mineral bath tubs.  But it was a nice stop on a cold night!

Nearly ran out of gas, thinking that we could fill up in tiny Durkee, OR.  Turned out the lone gas station there was closed on Sundays so we were VERY lucky to make it the additional 10 miles to the next town to fill up.  I think we put 22.6 gallons into a 20 gallon tank or something like that.  Phew.

Here we are in the van.  Thanks for the loan, Ebels!

Happy 2013 everyone, and stay tuned for January photos soon.