Japanese Gardens

On Monday the Portland Japanese Gardens had a free entry day so Briana, Jon, Kadyn and I went to check them out. (Brandon had to work.) It was very busy, but still beautiful. Jon and Brandon also baby-proofed the house over the weekend, because Kadyn is scooting like crazy. At least Brandon will know what he is doing if we have to do our house someday!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, we spent a good chunk of our day with a dog trainer, trying to save Smokey and Carole's relationship :) But afterwards Brandon used his valentine's gifts to cook dinner! That's right, cook! He got a cast iron wok and a couple of cookbooks, so after a trip to the grocery store he whipped up Plum Ginger Chicken on Chinese noodles. Delicious and beautiful.
(My evil plot to make him the family cook is working!)

Life in Vancouver

OK, we forgot to post last weekend's adventure, so we thought we'd do it this week. We TRIED to go on a hike, really. It was a gorgeous day, Carole had seen signs for some waterfalls near where she'd been working, and done some research. You could start at one waterfall and then hike along the creek/river up to another set, it was about 2 miles one way. We packed a lunch, packed the dog, brought the cameras. And the first falls were beautiful, we sat in the sun, took pictures, and then tried to hike. Only we couldn't find the trail! Seriously, we could NOT figure out where to go to get to the next falls. We took one trail but it just looped back to the parking lot. So, we drove to the next falls, and from there we could see people hiking, on the other side of the river, but we still couldn't figure out how to get there. So we ate our lunch on cold, wet rocks, took some more pictures and drove home to go to the dog park. Maybe we really are city people!
The first falls from below


The first falls from up above


At the second falls what was really cool were the rocks...with all these pools from higher water flow. They were smooth and crazy shapes. Very cool, but hard to photograph.
Now that we have two cameras we take a lot of pictures of each other taking pictures!

Seeing Portland

Our friend Nichol came to visit for a few days, unfortunately it turned out Brandon was out of town most of that time. But she and I spent an evening in Portland, walking around downtown, figuring out how to pay for parking and going to a fun restaurant called Montage. They specialize in Mac-n-cheese (all different flavors) and then bring you your leftovers in a tin-foil creation. You can't tell but mine is a cat and hers is a squirrel. We were a little disappointed we didn't get a 4 ft. tall giraffe like the table next to us!

Are you ready for some football?

GO STEELERS!

We threw a "Superbowl Party," but since we currently only have 3 friends most of it revolved around eating, and playing with the baby. It was still fun to get together!

Kadyn was a big fan of the 3-D glasses...we didn't think they worked that well!

Worn out from camping, football just didn't keep Jon's attention!

Snow Camping

Brandon spent his weekend camping with Jon and some other work folks. Sounds like they had a good time although they spent a lot of time trying to get vehicles unstuck. Brandon even said he stayed warm. Smokey went too, and had some friends to play with. He certainly came home tired. What I heard sounds like they had a good time, but I was also told "What happens at camp, stays at camp." so I am not sure what all was part of the weekend!

Trying to get to camp in the first place.

The dogs, ready to go home!

Sitting around the campfire.

Go Trailblazers!

My brother Connor has season tickets to the Portland Trailblazers (basketball), and when he heard I was on my own this weekend he took pity on me and invited me to watch them take on the Utah Jazz. We had a fun time and the Trailblazers wooped up on the Jazz. I am not usually a big sports fan, but it was a great night out. Then we got to laugh as the public transit people tried to shove people off the train because it was too loaded down. We stood back and watched people get worked up until the train finally got moving, by which time the next one was arriving and we hopped right on. It was definitely a city evening!