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...)

PDX Pix - March 2012

March photos!  Stay tuned for April ones, where there will be some significant house developments (hopefully)!

  

 Baby Noah joined us (Dustin and Cara) on Feb 23rd!  Banjo still wants all the attention, though.

 

What a cutie.

 Nerd Alert! Fantasy baseball draft at Frank's house in Seattle.

 Steve and Sarah's mustachioed gate

 Dump trip (actually 2) to unload 2500 lbs of debris from house demo.  Phew!  (shower walls, tile, and particle board floors are heavy)

 Kitchen demo progress

 Kitchen from the living room

 Kate holding Noah at D+C's

 Hey, the walls went away!

 Whiteout on the chairlift at Meadows.

Snowy day in Heather Canyon (Mt Hood Meadows)

PDX Pix - February 2012

Some photos from our February:

 Dustin doing a little studying

 Basement color scheme and photo wall

 Kate approves of the new basement 

 Clouds rolling in at Mt Hood Meadows

 Kitchen in mid-demolition stage

Zwickelmania!  Tasting some special beers right out of the casks at Cascade.

 Gorge view - hiking to Angels Landing

 Mikey had to rescue Banjo after our fraidy-dog got scared by some major wind gusts on a steep ridge.  What a wimp! (Banjo, not Mikey.)

 Basement laundry room - currently also our kitchen!

 Forgot to  sand the old trim paint, so the new stuff didn't stick.  Oh well, lesson learned!

 Painting the hallway walls.  This may require a roller extension or a ladder...

 On the Steamboat Gondola with friends!

 Steamboat from the village

 Aspens at Steamboat on a bluebird day

 Steamboat Springs!  Steve and Sarah apparently do not approve of the odors.

 Finished laundry/bathroom tile downstairs.

 Hood summit view

 Self-portrait, top of Clark Canyon, Mt. Hood.

 Nice view of St. Helens from Council Crest park

PDX pix - January 2012

And some more from January, which was dominated by getting started on the never-ending to-do list we have with our house...

We moved into our new house.  Still lots of things in boxes while we remodel.

But Banjo made sure to keep his prized possessions close at hand.

We started work on the downstairs laundry and bathroom area first.  Kate liked using the crowbar.

Tom worked on sizing new tile to replace the old linoleum.

Kate laying the new tile.

Then we moved onto kitchen destruction.  Kate still enjoyed using the crowbar.

And there's some of our old yellow countertop headed to the dump!

 

Banjo was sad to see the old carpet go and tried to stage a protest.

Don't worry, Banjo!  New carpet is on its way soon!

Even in the winter we have beautiful days like this where we have great views of snow-capped mountains!