Ahhh… A good day

If my count is accurate, I’ve still only had 2 days in the last 5 weeks were I didn’t work, including weekends. 

So I decided to take yesterday and today off (and this weekend).  Yesterday, I got caught up on some stuff around the house.   This morning, I met up with Seth and Ben for a road ride.  I wish I didn’t have to be to work at 6:45am every morning.  It is such a great way to start the day with a road bike ride.  After that I came home, ate, and took a nap.  Then I decided to ride to the stop of Sandia peak on the moto.   28 miles of curvy mountain roads and hardly any cars today.  Aaahhh… good times  🙂

Hopefully tonight and this weekend, I get to hang out with Kara (and maybe squeeze in a mountain bike ride).  What a good day!

 

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)!

Seth and Kristin’s Wedding

This past Saturday, our friends Seth and Kristin got married.  They had a very nice ceremony (which include their 4 legged family members) in their backyard, followed by a catered picnic in a nearby park.   It was a great time!!  Congrats you two.    And, I had no idea you could get a picture of yourself on a bottle of Jones soda! (yes, that’s them on there)

  
                        

Went Boating…. Almost

We made a good attempt this past weekend to head north to Lake Abiquiu and go boating on our friend Clint’s ski boat, along with Matt, Bri, and their daughter Ella.  Unfortunately, Clint was the only one who got to enjoy a boat ride, even though it was only about 5 minutes of one.  Soon after launching his boat he noticed a major overheating issue going on so we put it back on the trailer, only to realize that the impeller that’s used to draw water into the engine had disinegrated.   Though we should consider ourselves fortunate, as there had been a tragic drowning just before we had gotten to the lake. 

At this point, eventhough the temps were in the 90’s and the NM sun was still blazing, we decided to head to a remote camping site about 6 miles off the paved highway, right along the Chama River.   Here are a few pictures…

   

Phil and Melissa… Together at Last

Meant to post this sooner, but our friends Phil and Melissa finally tied the knot this past Sunday.  Congratulations you two!!  Before the big day, the guys got together on Friday for Phil’s bachelor party for one last wild night of strippers, meth, and a high speed police chase ending in a shoot out.  Actually…. that didn’t happen, instead we played some golf and hung out at Matt’s place while the girls went out and had some fun amongst themselves in the big city.   All in all, a great weekend. 

(if anyone wants a picture taken off the blog or is interested in any other pics I took or a full size one that I posted, just let me know)