Winter in Portland

One of the things I love about Portland is that the winters are very mild, well not this year. I'd invested in some serious winter boots before we left for Montana, and I've needed them as much in Portland as I did in MT. We made it back Friday night and managed to get a few errands done before things really started storming.

Portland has very few plows so the whole city basically shuts down when it snows. My office was closed today and is on delay for tomorrow. I'm thinking about taking the whole week off since it's a short week with the holiday.

Sadie had her first experience with snow, and she's had fun exploring. We took her to a local park and let her run off leash in the snow. She got the hang of it, but also wiped out a few times.

Here's a picture of her in full speed action:

Here's some video of her in action. Only the first half is interesting:

Our neighborhood, we've got 8 inches on the ground.

Early Christmas in Whitefish Montanta

I'm sure you're asking yourself, who volunteers to go to Montana in December? Well Tom's sister now calls Whitefish home, and we spent a week there for an early Christmas. It was cold (think below 0 lows), and very snowy. For me it's one of those places that's perfect IF you never have to leave the house.

We got lots of family time with the Honermanns and my folks were able to come as well. We got lots of time with my niece and nephews. My niece Maya is at my favorite kid age: 4 1/2. She's old enough to be able to talk with you and she's learning so much.

Tom and I bundling up for sub zero weather (am I really that pastey?)

Tom and his favorite niece

With my folks and niece. My dad needs to smile in pictures!

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

Sadie is a superior snuggler. She likes to be hugged, pet, and snuggled while she's sleeping. When she was tiny, tiny, I'd put her up in bed with Tom while I got ready for work and she'd curl up under his chin. We're kicking back watching some TV together.

Sadie Reflecting

Our little pup is all grown up! Sadie's now weighting in at over 30 lbs and is in her first heat. It's hard to believe that the same shy little pup we brought home 4 months ago is our eager and curious Sadie. She's a loving dog, always eager to snuggle and please. She hardly ever makes noise, though she has developed a snore, and she loves to bark at our rarely seen neighbor to the back.

She as Satchel is spoiled with an overabundance of dog beds, toys, and neck scratching.

Tom's got a new eyedentity

Tom upgraded his specs at a place in our neighborhood Eyedentity. I think he's channeling more retro and less inner Geek. What do you think?

Sadie's in Heat

To make a long story short, our dog Sadie was scheduled to be spayed right after our Aruba trip. We'd noticed when we got back that she had some hair falling out and had irritated skin patches, so we took her into the vet. She was diagnosed with mange and as a result, we couldn't have her spayed until she was treated for that.

She finished her 3 weeks of antibiotics and twice weekly baths and Tom scheduled an appointment for today. Well lucky us, Tom picked her up today and she's gone into heat. The vet doesn't want to spay her until the heat is over, so she's rocking puppy diapers. The things we do for our animals and to protect our furniture.

Sadie's growing

Sadie continues to grow, and it's hard to recall that she was a little 12 pound puppy when we brought her home.


She's also getting sneakier. We keep these mats on the couch when we're not around to keep her from sitting on the furniture and getting hair all over it. Well it turns out that she's figured out that she can sit up on the arm rest.



She's also discovered one of Satchel's favorite things, looking out the window on the landing to watch what's going on outside.

Visitors

My sister-in-law, brother-in-law, niece, twin nephews and husky came to visit. Let's say that our house had a very different vibe with the little kiddos under foot. Fortunately Portland has a lot to offer, and we went to OMSI, the zoo, and the Portland Children's Museum.

Andrea with Dakota

Sadie was wonderful with the kids, and she was definitely put to the test. Over the course of the weekend, I saw one twin try to ride her and another poke his finger in her eye. She took this all in stride, but she did sleep for about two days after everyone left.

My niece Maya was very excited about Sadie and kept telling her how much she loved her. Sadie tried to hop into bed with her in the middle of the night.

Tom with his two of his favorite things

Aruba!

Tom and I spent a week with my folks, my sister and her fiance in Aruba. Mostly it was a kick back week of sleeping in late, swimming, and family time. Thanks to mom Kaminski for planning almost all of the logistics.

The sun is intense there, so I protected my pasty white goodness with SPF 40 and a safari hat. I'm unfortunately still suffering from my internal balance being off due to the rough ocean kayaking, but I'm sure it will correct itself soon.

Tom and I celebrated a belated 4th anniversary at Pinchos Bar and Grill. The restaurant is on a pier built just for them. They had a good menu and the setting was amazing. It was pretty cool to eat at an open air restaurant. I was even tempted enough by their menu to partake in some fish and steak.































Tom and I did two excursions, kayaking to De Palm Island, and a snorkeling tour. Tom flipped out of his kayak and when I realized it was happening, I abandoned ship and paddled hard to get away!














It was beautiful once we reached the island but we had to paddle straight into headwinds on the bay to get back to shelter.

We also did a snorkel trip to the Antilla ship wreck. It was pretty cool to snorkel over an abandoned shipwreck. We also enjoyed a local cocktail the green iguana.
















Here was the view from the plane as we landed in Texas:















We're now back into reality, and Tom's sister is showing up with our niece and twin nephews tomorrow. Kiddie patrol will be in full force.

Procrastination

I'm procrastinating working on performance reviews, so here's some new stuff for y'all.

Fall is here in Portland, and it's been sunny but cold. No serious rain (yet)! I've been able to see Mt. Hood the last few days and even caught a clear view of St. Helen's in it's entirety.

I've finally gotten back into running. After I tore my ACL and MCL, I was pretty fearful of running on it. Insert mental image of death clench on the handlebars the first time they put me on it. I've been running since then regularly, but not very far or fast. I found a great running site where they provide programs to help you build toward your goals. I just finished one of the 5K programs. Yay me!

Lots of vacation coming up through the end of the year:
Aruba
Sister-in-law and brother-in-law coming to Portland
Thanksgiving
A week in Whitefish, MT
Christmas
Cabin rental on Mt. Hood

I caught most of the debate tonight. I have to say that I'm feeling pretty excited about the upcoming election. I've been really disappointed with the Bush administration and I'm hopeful for change. Get out and vote or if you're an Oregonian, make sure you mail in your ballot!

Habanero Peppers

This is what an eye looks like that comes in contact with a habanero pepper:

I had just chopped and deseeded 5 habanero peppers and made the mistake of rubbing my eye. Before I knew it, my whole eye area had become inflamed up to my eyebrow. I don't recommend it!

Tomatoes!

We didn't have our act together enough to get much of a garden going this year, but fortunately our neighbors did. Across the street, our neighbors are sports writers and they travel during peak harvest season. Next door we have neighbors that are very committed to their organic garden. All of that means tomatoes for us.

We ended up with a beautiful allotment of red, green, orange, and yellow tomatoes, and it was caprese, alla checca, and tomato tart all week.

Here's the recipe for the tomato tart. It was delicious:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1634806

Many of you know I'm a foodie, I love to cook, eat with friends and try new recipes. I've become a dedicated vegetarian, and it goes to show you that with beautiful food like this, you don't miss the meat!

Sadie and Cujo

We've started taking Sadie to the park, and there's another little puppy about her age that also seems to be a shepherd mix. His name is Cujo, and Tom's gotten to know his owner Heather. She's been dropping Cujo off every once in awhile, and Cujo and Sadie have been having lots of fun. Tom's enjoying watching their antics, and Sadie's knocked out for the next two days.


Cujo





















Sadie

Girls Weekend!

My college roommates have ended up geographically in two areas, the glorious pacific northwest and the Midwest. Usually we see each other at weddings, but we got together to celebrate Kimberly's wedding and Courtney's impending addition to her family. Hopefully this is the first of a regular tradition. It was great to relax with old friends, tour a new town, and get caught up.

See you in March ladies!

Satchel

There's a good chance that if you're reading this, you knew our dog Satchel or at least heard the stories about him. Tom had Satchel since he was about 6 months old. For many years, it was the 2 of them, and then since Tom and I got together 6 years ago, it's always been the three of us.

He was definitely a special needs dog. His circle of trust was small, problematically so as he always wanted to be leading the action. For those lucky to be in the circle, he was affectionate and always wanted to be close. He knew a lot of words so much so that we spelled most of the ones he knew to avoid a burst of unwanted excitement.

Tom and I had been slowly realizing that Satchel was becoming an old dog. His snoring had gotten loud at night, his coat greying, and he was having a hard time getting up. Still his energy and spirit always seemed puppy like. He'd had cancer right before we moved to Oregon 3 years ago, but we lived close to a veterinary oncologist (only in CA can such a situation occur), and they thought they'd gotten what they needed to.

In short, he starting showing active signs of illness quickly and Tom and I had to make decisions quickly regarding his care. An ultrasound showed he was full of cancer, and he was bleeding out a from a large tumor in his spleen. It was a question of when not whether things would end. We'd had to put down to sleep on July 3rd.

Here are some of my favorite pictures. Enjoy.

Miscellaneous and Sundry

A few notable events:

Most of you know that I've been working on an acquisition for the last 14 months, and we're finally getting the systems into production this weekend! I've been responsible for managing the testing for both the business and IT teams and 60+ hour weeks were a regular occurrence. I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Could that be the glimmer of a normal life?

It was a good experience, but a lot of responsibility, sometimes more then I felt that I should have or wanted.

I'm on my way to Seattle this weekend to celebrate some life events with friends, a wedding, and a soon to be addition to anothers family.

Finally, Tom and I are going to be celebrating our 4 year anniversary. I'm actually fleeing so the coup to head up to Seattle on our anniversary, so Tom's on the hook to plan something to celebrate when I get back. Pressure on!

Pictures from the park

We've been trying to be better about taking Sadie to the park then we were about Satchel. We've been going to Laurelhurst lately and they've got a cool off leash area. It helps her burn off her endless energy, keeps her socialized with other dogs, keeps introducing her to strangers.

We had a late summer, but a very dry one. I'm guessing 5 days of rain in the last 3 months. We need to take advantage of it before it's gone. For those of y'all not from Portland it doesn't actually rain here all the time.

Sleepy, toothless puppy

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Sadie seems to be going through a growth spurt and wants to sleep a lot. Apparently growing is exhausting! She's also losing her baby teeth. It's pretty gross, but also pretty funny. We're finding them around the house, and I keep mistaking them for popcorn.

We had a nice weekend between summer BBQs and some lovely weather. Hope it lasts for a couple more weeks!

Sadie's growing!

We had Sadie in for her next vet visit, and they confirmed what we thought. She's growing! She's gained 5 pounds in the last 3 weeks or 30% of her total body weight. She no longer fits on my lap, much to my dismay, but is still very much a lap dog. She loves being pet or snuggled.

She seems to be doing well with socialization to the point where folks are scared by her. She's so excited to see them.

Sadie's got a friend

Friends of ours have a pretty energetic Beagle, George. Since Sadie doesn't have all of her vaccinations, we've been limited her exposure to animals at the parks. George is about her size, and we thought he'd be a good socialization exercise for Sadie. She had a great time playing with him, and they made fast friends. It was a little crazy having two pups in the house.