PDX Pix - May 2013

May started off with a fun event - Kate defended her Master's thesis at San Jose State, so as of now she's officially a master!  Of education!  Joking aside, it's a great accomplishment and perhaps more importantly to her, means that she's done and can go back to focusing on teaching.  I tagged along on the weekend trip and we got a nice visit with friends in as well.  We even had a pool party!  Other items of note in May were the DASH puzzlehunt that we hosted in Portland, a visit to Seattle to see family, continued baby developments (and excitement/apprehension!  In case you missed the news somehow, Kate and I are expecting a baby boy at the end of September.  Pretty sure all our 4 readers already are aware of that though), three babies of teacher friends being born (two on the same day!) and the start of warm weather and gardening season.

Portland's living room - Pioneer Courthouse Square.  Downtown, on a nice sunny day.

Adam and Ann, being silly out to dinner with us in San Jose.

Pool party!  A&A are lucky to have a nice pool in their back yard, and it was hot enough in CA that weekend to make it a much enjoyed amenity.  Here's Adam defying gravity somehow.

The Bay Area gang.  And Argo.

Kate's modeling her new maternity pants.  What style!  Does it count as "sagging" if they're still hiked up over your belly button?

Argo!  Always attentive.

To celebrate Kate's thesis defense, we went wine tasting in downtown San Jose!  Don't worry, we had a tip from some colleagues of Kate's to go to this place that had good NA wine.  Surprisingly when we showed up there, one of Kate's advisers from SJSU was pouring wine! Was fun for them to reconnect.  

See!  Non-alcoholic.  Not quite the same, but not bad, really.

Here's Kate with baby Mark, only about a week old at this point.

We did some board game playing on nice nights outside.  This one is Tobago.  I think I probably lost, based on the look on Kate's face.

Final preparations for DASH5.  These hex pieces are all part of the final puzzle, which gets assembled to look like the caffeine molecule - the answer being 'caffeine'.  

Pre-DASH prep at Rogue with co-organizer Rich.  This probably looks familiar to Marc (if he still reads this!).

Start of the DASH.  I think there were ~100 people in ~23 teams at the PDX event.

Baby geese at Waterfront Park!  

Later in the day it did rain, but we managed and all the puzzlers were good sports about it.

And then later in the month it rained more...  still have to go on walks, Banjo!  (He's kind of a wimp.  Not a hardy Portland dog yet, I guess.)

Here we are at the Waffle Window, courtesy of Kate's mom (birthday present).  Very yummy, both sweet and savory waffles!

At some point we were going to have to post a baby-bump picture, right?  

Triplets!  Just kidding.  All your babies are belong to Kate.  

Board game night just happened to coincide with the day Kate used dry ice in class.  She had some leftovers, so naturally we played Pompeii with an active volcano.

More games!  Playing Niagara with nieces, nephew, and Beth in Seattle. 

I know who likes being in warm sunbeams...

Rufus and Banjo apparently enjoy laying butt-to-butt in the dirt pile when it's warm, too.  Dogs are weird.  And Banjo needs a haircut here, bad.  (he got one)

Parting shot of baby in profile!  See, we weren't faking with the above baby bump picture!