Wake-Up Call

This morning we woke up to loud speakers and music. Apparently, the street we live on is the registration and the finish line for the Pints for Pasta 10k. Good thing we don't have to go anywhere for a few hours. It looks like everyone is having a good time and I really enjoyed watching people cross the finish line. Here are some pictures from our balcony.

Finish Line

The after-race celebration. It's such a sunny, beautiful day today. I love seeing the river in the background of this picture.

A Weekend With Steff

A few weeks ago, my sister Steff came to Portland to visit us for the weekend. I love to have visitors in town, especially my sisters. We always have such a fun time. She flew in on Saturday morning and after we picked her up, we headed to breakfast. Steff loves biscuits and so we took her to Pine State Biscuits. They are known for their wonderful biscuit breakfast sandwiches.

Steff got a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit sandwich.

Jeff got the McIsley sandwich, yes that is fried chicken, with pickles and honey. It's not the most healthy breakfast, but it sure tastes good.

After breakfast, we went to the Saturday Market in downtown Portland. It's always a good time. Lots of great things to buy and tons of interesting people to watch.

The next thing on our list was to visit the Pittock Mansion. Steff found the Pittock Mansion on the internet and wanted to check it out. I had heard of the mansion, but never made it up there. I'm so glad we went. The grounds are beautiful and the view is amazing. Touring the mansion was very interesting too. I think it was well worth the trip. Here are some pictures.

Steff with her Paparazzi camera and gear.

The Pittock Mansion

Jeff sporting his red shoes. People love those shoes, every time he wears them he gets a million compliments from random people. It's actually kind of a game with us to see how many compliments he gets in a day.

We lucked out, the weather was beautiful.

Me and Jeff.

Another picture of us.

I loved all the vibrant colors of the flowers.

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day, we went to church and then Jeff made a wonderful dinner. He made an Indian dish with eggplant and chickpeas. I wish I would have taken pictures of that.

Monday, was the last day Steff was in town, so we headed to the outlets to do some serious shopping. Steff wanted to find some back to school clothes and the outlets did not disappoint. We had a wonderful time.

Thanks again for coming out to visit us! We had a blast!

Vampire Weekend

Last Tuesday night we went with our friends, the Matthews and the Schmitts, to the Vampire Weekend concert at the Edgefield McMenamins. There was rain in the forecast, but it hadn't rained all day, so I thought we were in the clear. Boy was I wrong, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, it started raining. It didn't just rain, it poured and poured. Jeff and I both wore our raincoats, but soon we were soaked. They were selling ponchos, but by the time I realized that I wanted a poncho, I was already soaked and it really wouldn't do any good. In hindsight, I would have ran right over and picked up a poncho the minute we arrived. Although it rained all night, we had such a fun time. Thanks so much to the Matthews and the Schmitts for a memorable night.

Weekend at the Coast

About a month ago, we spent a weekend at the Beach House in Lincoln City with Jeff's family. Jared, Cathie and Lily flew in from San Antonio and James flew in from Ohio. Unfortunately Jessica had to work, we definitely missed seeing her. They spent about a week at the Beach House, Jeff and I were only able to join them for the weekend, but we are glad we had the opportunity to go. We had such a fun time visiting with everyone.

Jared, Cathie and Lily had just arrived in Portland and we had lunch at Andina, one of Jeff's family's favorite restaurants. It's a wonderful Peruvian restaurant and the owners are from Corvallis.

On Saturday, we roasted hotdogs and had s'mores on the beach. The weather was perfect.

We had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying everyone's company.

Next came dessert, I love S'mores!

Jeff made his S'more with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Lily making sand castles.

We had salmon for Saturday's dinner, it was delicious. All the food we had at the Beach House was very good.

Saturday was also Jeff's birthday. He loves Angel Food Cake with peppermint frosting. So we surprised him with a cake. Cathie decorated it. Cathie's birthday was on Monday, so we had a zucchini carrot cake.

I love Jeff's face in this picture, he was definitely surprised.

Thank goodness he was able to blow out all the candles in one try.

Jeff and Lily.

Lily and Jeff had matching shirts. Lily thought that was pretty cool.

A lot of these pictures are the ones that Cathie took, thanks for sharing with us. We had a wonderful time with everyone and can't wait to do it again.

Farmer's Market

Yesterday morning we went to the Farmers' Market at Portland State University. It was so nice to catch the streetcar right outside our apartment and ride it to the Farmer's Market. I really think I could get used to this public transportation thing. There is something so relaxing about sitting on the streetcar and not worrying about driving and parking. I'm super excited about the idea of reading more books as I ride the streetcar. Here are some pictures of our Farmer's Market adventure.

Here is a picture of Jeff, and again, I forget to have Jeff take a picture of me.

Below are some pictures from the market. I love all the different colors. For dinner tonight we had salmon and a corn salsa from the veggies we got at the market. It was so good. I can't wait to go to the market next week.

Jackie O

I've always been enamored by Jackie O, she is so beautiful and I love her iconic style. Actually, there is something I find intriguing about the whole Kennedy family. So when I saw the August cover of New York Magazine with Katie Holmes recreating the windblown shot of Jackie, taken by photographer Ron Galella, I fell in love with this shot. I can't believe how much Katie looks like Jackie. Apparently, Katie will be portraying Jackie in an upcoming History Channel miniseries called "The Kennedys", and it's scheduled to air sometime in 2011. I can't wait to see it.



Photo via www.Hollywoodlife.com

New Apartment

I can't believe how long it's been since my last blog post, I've definitely got some catching up to do. First of all, last weekend we moved to a new apartment in downtown Portland. We really enjoyed living in Hillsboro and met a lot of great friends out there, but we wanted to be closer to downtown. We love to go out to eat and were always driving downtown anyway, so we figured that we would make the move to be closer. We found a great apartment in the South Waterfront area of downtown. Also, I'm super close to work now, no more dealing with traffic on the 26 and I'm pretty happy about that. We are still trying to organize our apartment, so once we get that all done I'll post some pictures. In the meantime, I wanted to post this picture. I absolutely love this idea. Jeff saw this in one of the design books I got from the library and he thought it would work nicely in our new kitchen. We got the shelves from Ikea. I love how the cookbooks give a pop of color to the room.