Kara’s Birthday- African Safari Style in the Great Northwest

Saturday was Kara’s 29th Birthday.  She’ll probably be mad when she sees that I put that on here because she keeps telling me it was her 27th birthday, but I know better.   I suppose she wanted to forget about getting older, because she asked for me to take her to the Oregon Zoo in Portland.  

It seemed that just about every family in Portland must have had the same idea, perhaps due to a rain-free weekend- as it was packed especially considering that we didn’t get there until about 2pm.  Nonetheless we had a fun time dodging the baby strollers and wild animals, at least when they weren’t hiding from us- we saw many exhibits & cages w/o any critters in sight.

Later that evening we tried out a pretty cool Asian restaurant called Saucebox in downtown and then took in the view from the 30th floor at the Portland City Grill while enjoying some libations.

   

Christmas… Yes, I know it’s February

Basically since the start of the year, I’ve been on call at work.  That means I get pages to respond to equipment issues 24 hrs a day Monday – Friday, and as of 2 weeks ago, about half of my weekends will be on call too.   In fact, 2 weeks ago I got the “opportunity” to, on a Saturday night, work on some equipment from about 9pm until about 1:30am.  What does that have to do with Christmas and the fact that it’s mid-February?  Pretty simple, life is too busy & moving too quickly these days….   😦

In any event, here’s the reader’s digest version of what we’ve been up to for the last 2 months: 

1) Christmas!- Bailey got a rubber ducky yellow rain jacket for Christmas from one of his grandparents that ironically enough matches his dad’s yellow Marmot rain jacket.

  

2) Happy Newyears! While his parents had a great time celebrating New Years eve at Oba (Pearl district restaurant that I’d highly recommend) with some good friends, Bailey didn’t seem as excited to wear the beads and “2008” glasses as his dad was just hours earlier. 

 

3) Showshoeing is fun. Mt. Hood has got a ton of snow this year. As I write this, they have a ~ 180″ base (that’s 15ft!). Kara got us some snowshoes for Christmas and we went new years day. Can you say POWDER?! We were able to go anywhere we wanted in the woods eventhough there was that much snow.

  

4) Portland International Auto Show. We went a couple weekends ago with some friends. There were definitely some nice rides there. Even some that I hadn’t heard of before, such as this Dutch Spyker. Yes, Kara, there are some cars that I don’t know about (though they’re available in limited quantities)!

The Dog Is Ready To Go….

Looks like Bailey’s ready to move to Portland!!   I think Bailey gets more blog time than any other topic on this blog… 

Bailey’s First Birthday

Kara and I celebrated Bailey’s birthday with him last night by making some cupcakes and wearing elmo hats.   Ok, we’re totally lame…..   but I think he had a good time nonetheless….

  

Got a dog named Bailey

Kara and I had played w/ the idea of getting a dog for a while, but we weren’t sure if we were responsible enough yet to handle having something depend on us….  well, the first weekend we got back from Europe we were about to go to Whole Foods and get some groceries when we saw a mobile pet adoption van.   We went over and there was the guy below in the window…

We named him Bailey.   He’s about 11 months old, 40lbs, and a lab (perhaps chow) mix.    He’s been pretty good, but has some major seperation anxiety whenever we go anywhere (he was in at least 1 other home which left him outside all the time).   And I mean anywhere.  He follows us all over the house and won’t eat or go to the bathroom w/o us.   Beyond that he definitely needs some basic training, but overall, he’s a great natured dog and did I mention super soft?  🙂