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.