PDX Pix - July 2013

I've got a lot from July - busy month!  Travels, visitors, food, music, house projects, and more.  Let's see...

Cape Cod was our first stop, for a family visit over July 4th week/weekend.  Here we are harvesting the garden bounty.

 Some words of wisdom courtesy of Grandpa Nichols:

Watch out at the Chatham Fish and Lobster, they have attach lobsters.

Goofing off.  I think this was more amusing to Kate back then than it would be now, however.

Bocce with the 'rents.

Here were on the Bay side of Cape Cod, wading across a tidal inlet to explore.

Tucked between low and high tide are lots and lots of oyster beds - aquaculture.  Pretty neat to see the setups, as there were lots of "farmers" harvesting at low tide for the July 4th crowds.

A guys from East Dennis Oyster Farm stopped and gave us a lesson on oyster aquaculture, which was pretty informative.  Apparently there's a lot that goes into a good oyster, similar to how the terrain can influence a wine significantly.

Gordie, Amanda, and Willem joined us for a few days on the Cape.  It was extra great to have them as visitors.  I think we all enjoyed the various beaches and water.  Here's Willem and Gordie (and an obstructed Amanda I think).

Kate and Mom at Ridgevale

The crowd at snacktime

4th of July parade downtown!

This was the best one of the bunch, sorry Willem.  I think you did enjoy the parade though, even with the cannons blasting off mere feet from our ears!  Banjo would not have approved.

We are big fans of corn

We watched fireworks over the water from the golf course, a great and spacious spot to end the holiday. 

Next up was a trip down to Maryland for Bailey's wedding on Kent Island.  Here we are catching up with college friends (and fellow parents-to-be) Jeff and Amanda.

Post-wedding.  It was probably 99 degrees and in the sun.  Wearing a tux for a few hours in that heat was interesting.  But a lovely place and nice wedding.  Congrats, Bailey!

On our way back to the airport with Amanda and Jeff we stopped in Annapolis at the Naval Museum.  Neat exhibit and virtually empty!  And it had air conditioning, which was clutch.  I call this one "Pregnant Woman on Ship's Stern."

And then we flew back to Portland, with a nice view of (L-R) Mt St Helens, Ranier, and Adams as we neared home.

Check it out - Kate is a Master!  Bravo.

Meanwhile, our garden had been producing mutant zucchini squash.  And still does.  This was just the tip of the iceberg, apparently.  Anybody need some squash?  

Banjo got a doggie donut at Blue Star.   Yummmmm.

We got a visit from Cathy and Marc!  Thanks guys.  Here we somehow have a picture of Cathy pushing a stroller with a baby that is neither ours nor Cathy's nor Dustin's.  Hmm....

Kate and Marc

Back at home we IKEA-hacked a couple bookshelves into a bench with bins for toy storage.  I think it turned out pretty nicely.

Cathy got a picture of the three of us (Banjo not at his most distinguished) from the Crown Point Vista House during a Gorge tour day.

Phew, busy month - and that doesn't even cover our adventures into hippie-dom for two Phish concerts at the Gorge!  That might need a separate post...

PDX Pix - June 2013

I'm a bit behind the times again, oops.  June is great in Portland, the days are wildly long and the sun starts to outweigh the clouds.  The world seems to explode with green growth as the mixture of rain and sun seems to make all types of plants quite happy.

Here's some of what we were up to:

Bike commuting while the weather is good.  Here I am waiting for the Hillsboro-bound MAX train in Beaverton. 

On another bike adventure, I explored some roads out Northwest of Portland and ended up on a gravel-laden adventure.  Pretty roads like this at times, though.

At one point I saw a truck with some teenage-looking guys and girls stopped, I said hi and rode by.  Later I heard them coming so I pulled off to let the dust settle as they went by.  The sped by, fishtailing and generally speeding through fire roads, and I couldn't really believe what I was seeing as they spun around a corner and into a ditch, toppling the truck over like this.  Amazingly everyone was ok, and I left after another truck showed up and they started thinking about how to get the thing turned over.  Crazy.

Kate did some bathroom painting despite her balance being a little off-center.  Don't worry, she's safely braced against falling here.

Of course Banjo required lots of snuggles.

I went to the open house for the new Single-A baseball team in Hillsboro, the Hillsboro Hops, with some co-workers.  I haven't been to a game yet (I know, shame shame) but it was fun to see the new field (all turf, even the brown part in the infield) and watch the players practice a bit. 

Nesting.  We got a crib - here Kate ponders the instructions while we put it together.  I should say while she puts it together, I think she did the whole thing herself.

The garden's raspberry crop was great again - it seems to have two peaks of production, one in June and one later in August.

Haircut!

Jeremy and I poured beer at the National Organic Beer Festival again this year (2nd time for me).  This year we got Eel River (CA) and their IPA and Acai-Wheat beers. 

The best part is after our day-ending shift all the "leftover" beer goes to the back and the volunteers get to finish it off!  This year we were smart and affixed labels so we'd know what we were sampling.

I went to a Major League Ultimate (frisbee) match - yes that's a thing.  4 teams on the East and West coasts each, and it's pretty impressive watching these guys run and huck and leap and dive and catch all over the place.  They are good.  Turned out the San Francisco Dogfish were better than the Portland Stags, but it was a fun time anyway.

We visited the Seattle family and Soheil took some great pictures with his fancy camera.  Here's a few shots. 

July next!  (soon I promise...  and if we're lucky Kate will post some pictures about her adventures all over New England for weddings and visiting friends!)