Philadelphia

We made it to Philadelphia. After a long journey we left our house at 0300, and rolled into Philly at 4:30pm eastern time. I didn't get much sleep other than a couple of hours, still had enough steam to walk around town. We were really hungry, the plane was full, we had planned to purchase a sandwich, but everything was sold by the time the attendant got to us. So we got by on a muffin we ate at 0500 with a cup of coffee. Had a wonderful dinner at the hotel, I am exhausted but too exhausted to rest. Tomorrow we will visit the historical area of town, it is only about 4 blocks from where we are staying.

Pictures are of me standing in front of the gate to China Town in Philadelphia and a shot of the city at sunset.

Vacation Here We Come

Nothing more exhausting than trying to get ready to leave for vacation. We had planned to go to the corn festival in Aumsville on Saturday, but the weather and our exhaustion got in the way. Molly said the kids had been up late on Friday night, so she wasn't disappointed about not going as they both were probably going to need a nap. This was Air show weekend in Hillsboro, but we knew that there was no way we would be able to get to their house with all we had to do. Well, the airporter is picking us up at 0345. I think we have every thing together. Still made a last minute run to the mall to pick up a travel purse and a fanny pack for Martin. If we don't have it packed I guess we really don't need it! We have our boarding passes and luggage paid for, $40 for two pieces for each of us. Fingers crossed that it all goes well! Philidelphia here we come....

Our Anniversary

Today is our fifth anniversary and we both worked, but went out to dinner at a restaurant in Vancouver where we had never been before. It is called Lapellah and is known for cooking all meals over wood fire. We had a four course meal. An appetizer of artichoke and spinach with pita bread, all nice and warm. I had a Caprese salad that was wonderful, heirloom tomatoes and home made mozzarella. Martin had the special salad of the day with figs and goat cheese. Martin had citrus chicken and I had tuna. The entree came with two sides, choices of grilled potatoes and vegetables. For dessert we had a cherry turnover with a scoop of almond ice cream, wonderful meal and reasonably priced. We will go there again. Martin bought me a Murano glass heart necklace and I bought him a couple CDs; new running shoes for our trip; and a cast iron grill. A very nice evening together. Martin is watching an episode of the Sopranos and I decided to update the blog, though I am able to watch the show out of the corner of my eye while I type.Very tough day and I am so glad it is Friday!

Retreat

My management team had a successful retreat today at Silver Falls State Park. We had some good protected time to have some in depth conversations about goals and priorities, did some team building and had some fun too. The weather cooperated very well, and it is beautiful location to get away from everything, and no cell phone or Blackberry service, which was a definite plus. We ended the day with a pot luck barbecue...Everyone brought different items to put on shishkabob, and a side dish. We had tons of food.

The top picture is the group. Next to me is Adalberto, Tom, Craig, Kristin, Bev, deDrae, Julie, and Judy...Paul was taking this photo. The bottom photo is the cabin where we had our discussions.

Tomorrow back to the real job....

Patient Wolfhounds

I have never seen the wolfhounds so patient. You must be wondering what they are so intent on watching, but the picture doesn't show what Martin is doing. He is busy preparing bags of steak chunks in marinade for a management group picnic tomorrow. Doggie dreams of steak falling from the sky, unfortunately they didn't get a single piece. Folks will be making kabobs with veggies and grilling them over charcoal at Silver Falls State Park. Martin has a hard day of work tomorrow at a team retreat at the park. He is taking my camera so maybe he will have a blog entry with photos! We made our reservations for New York City today. We will be there on September 4 thru the 6th. The hotel where we are staying is in the theatre district very close to Times Square. I'm still not fully in sync with the idea that we will be leaving in just two weeks! Lots to do, but other things will come first like our anniversary on Friday. We haven't made any plans, but I am sure we will go out to dinner. Our trip is really our present and our first big vacation since our trip to Italy in 2006.

Clark County Fair 2009

Spent the afternoon at the fair today. It was really fun. We took the bus from Fisher's Landing terminal, and it was a comfortable quick ride to the fair. It only cost $2 a piece and it dropped us off right by the gate where we could purchase our tickets and enter the fair. I have to admit we kind of ate our way through the fair. I had a gyro and shared some onion rings and an elephant ear with Martin. The picture above shows Martin enjoying a fair favorite the onion burger. We toured all the animal barns and heard about steers from an 8 year old boy. We also enjoyed the 4H dog exhibit and paws, claws, and jaws the special touring exhibit. We sat and listened to a bunch of twentysomethings playing songs from Hendrix and Tom Petty. I felt that it was good since this weekend is the 40 year anniversary of Woodstock, though I'm sure these guys were exposed to the music from their parent's vinyl albums. However the picture above is not that band, but a great group of guys playing songs like "Sweet Sue", music which would have been from our parents records.

Field Trip

Well, I have been encouraged to get back to blogging again, so here I am. I just downloaded the two photos above in a fraction of the time it would have taken with dial up. Now the photos are a little strange I will admit, but they relate to what I did today. I didn't go into Salem today, and worked at home for some of the day, but in the afternoon I met with one of my Regional Managers and a representative from the Portland Development Commission (PDC) to look at some property that PDC has purchased over in the Foster Road (Lents) area. They would like to see an Employment office or OneStop center at the location, so we went over to check it out.

On the plus side it is in a great location, transportation-wise: Right next to a light rail stop on the new light rail line to Clackamas Town Center and right next to I-205 and bus lines. On the negative side, it's a rather old seedy building in a not so desirable part of town. But PDC would remodel and part of the reason they do this is for re-development purposes. We have a lot of analysis to do before we make any decision, one way or the other.

So that's what I did today.... I will try to be a more regular contributor to this blog

Crazy Bones Clock

I was broken hearted when for no reason my favorite crazy bones dog clock fell off the wall mysteriously on Saturday. The pendulum and the minute hand are among the missing. Both Mush and I searched all over the place, but they haven't shown up. The clock was a gift to ourselves to celebrate our first anniversary. We bought it at Rain Dog's in Yachats the city on the Oregon coast where we were married. Now that I have high speed internet, I searched for web sites by the artist's name where I could find another clock or find a place that had replacement parts. It turns out the artist, Michelle Allen lives and works in Battle Ground, WA. I was able to locate her blog and through it get in contact with one of her staff. It looks like my beloved clock will soon be on the wall and back in business!

I have been encouraging Mush to get back to blogging and last night he agreed it was time. So look forward to some posts from him very soon.

River View

We live across the street from the Columbia River. Tonight when I pulled onto my street I could see two red tail hawks hunting very close to the river bank. I could only imagine that my neighbors who have the fantastic river views had a front row seat to nature up close and personal. By the time I ran in the house to get my camera they were gone. I can only guess that they found what they were looking for so close to the houses. It was dark at 7:40pm, I know that the rain was the cause, but for a minute there was a brief hit of what fall will bring. It seems just when I get into the summer groove it is almost over, and we will be looking to Labor day.

I am enclosing a picture of Sailor, he was looking particularly cute tonight. Still haven't quite grasped how to tweak my pictures, but my husband promises to help me with them.

A Movie for All Food Lovers

Instead of going to the Clark County fair last night we decided to go see a movie. I checked the local listings and decided the best choice for us would be "Julie & Julia" which was playing at the Cinetopia. I went on line and was able to purchase our tickets for the living room theatre and we got there in time to eat dinner at the theatre. Mush had a roast beef dinner and I had fish and chips. Delicious! I was happy that we watched the movie with our stomachs full or we would have been ravenous by the time it ended. It was totally entertaining and funnier than I had expected. It certainly gives you a different vision of Julia Childs, she wasn't the uptight anal chef that I had imagined. She certainly blazed many trails and brought women into the main stream in gourmet cooking. I wasn't aware that her husband Paul was investigated during the McCarthy era and exonerated of all charges. The both lived to be in their early 90's in spite of all that butter!

Mush is the chef in our house, though I cover most other in the house duties in terms of cooking and cleaning. I enjoy cooking, but can't touch the pleasure and relaxation that it brings Mush. It totally relaxes him after a day of total bureaucratic bullpuckey like nothing else. His meals are beautiful to look at as well as delicious to eat. Tonight I harvested some of our home grown tomatoes. It feels good to see the results of my daily watering and tending as well as the benefit of eating something that truly deserves the organic label. I am also enjoying the million bells hanging plant outside our kitchen window. We have a humming birds who visit it every day, and I have been buzzed while watering the plant. They are amazing creatures and it is entertaining to watch the birds who visit our feeder all year long. Time for dinner and it's pasta! Bon appetit, as Julia would say.

Yard Work Never Seems to Stop

Mush and I spent our morning today outside working in the yard. Mush did his usual poop patrol and mowing as well as edging the front yard and my beloved pain in the butt front flower bed. I spent the bulk of my time weeding and pruning the roses which seem to be doing fine in spite of my inattention to them over the extremely hot week we had. I have been bargaining with myself to get out there and take care of the weeds, so today was the day no excuses. I do have to say I enjoy it when it is all cleaned up. Yard work is the kind of thing that gives you instant gratification, only now it reminds me of how much work our backyard needs. I am enclosing a picture of our tomato plants that are doing great. We have a volunteer sunflower and some volunteer corn in the backyard thanks to the birds and their dropping seeds. I am letting the corn go because I am curious what will happen with it. It wasn't "knee high by the 4th of July" so we will see what happens. Also a picture of the front flower bed, still more touch ups to do, but such an improvement. We talked about going to the County fair today, we will have to see whether we can tolerate so much exercise in one day!

Into the 21st Century

We took a big step into the 21st century today. We finally have high speed internet, and have waved good bye to dial up. Long time coming, I think we were some of the last diehard dial up people left. It was so frustrating, it really prevented us from fully utilizing our computer and enjoying the benefit of the web. Anything we tried to do took at least five times as long. I got used to taking breaks while I was trying to arrange travel, or do any on line shopping, waiting for the pages to load, then hitting the wrong button and losing everything. I also got a laptop for my birthday, and the wireless connection means that we can be together in the family room while we are working on line. No more isolation or losing our work when the phone rings. Verizon brought FIOs into the neighborhood last fall. Our home phone is Verizon as well, so we were able to get a good package with free nationwide long distance. I won't miss calling family on cell phones, they are two tiny to be comfortable for a long chat. My laptop will also allow me to directly upload pictures from the memory card of my camera. This will encourage me to take more pictures since they will be much easier to share.

I am adding a pictures of Heartman taken in the gorge earlier this summer. We went up to a State Park on the Washington side that was once a ranch. Lots of room for the dogs to run with very few people around. The lupen were blooming and we stopped on the way home for a picnic at a rest stop next to the Columbia. Beautiful early summer day, hard to believe it is almost mid August and we will be leaving for the east coast on August 31st!