Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

Scott's photos:

tulipallee, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Scott's photo of ma and my enormous head:

Norm&JoyceInField2 (1), originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Scott, ma, and I returned to Wooden Shoe Farm last weekend. Our hopes dimmed of having a nice walk through a rural farm when we found the Woodburn I-5 exit backed-up and a heavy traffic along the highway. Like our past visits, the farm was very crowded with a tacky carnival area at the front of the farm. However, once we actually got to the tulip fields, I was once again amazed by the colors. The trip was very much worth it.

house's first xmas decoration

After three weeks on crutches, this was my first productive weekend.

We invited mom and Sheena to come over and decorate our GE Christmas tree on Saturday. Gordon loves the return of her tree.

Scott and I splurged on our first Christmas lights for the house. We chose twinkling cool white LEDs. The LEDs go well with the house's blue-grey color. The eave and gutter clip system we found worked very well.

We also re-started our kitchen remodel and opened the IKEA boxes we ordered just before my knee accident. We installed a set of wall cabinets. It was a lot of work, but we got them up this evening. Next we'll work demolitioning the base cabinets and coordinating with our plumber.

patella week 3

Woo-hoo! I finally got into the knee clinic and have been freed from the crutches and full-leg brace. I'm now staggering around.

dislocated patella = bad

I thought I would be little healthier by walking to the bank instead of driving last night. Instead I tripped on an A-board, twisted my leg, and dislocated my patella (kneecap) resulting in drama: screaming... yelling... sobbing... strangers... tenants... paramedics... firemen... ambulance... drugs... ER... "the Michael Jackson drug"... wake-up... Scott... Walgreens... crutches... home.

Fortunately, I understand that a dislocated kneecap is not as bad as other knee injuries -- although at the time I couldn't imagine anything more torturous.

kitchen remodel: phase 5 of 31

Scott and I both took a four-day weekend to paint the kitchen. We've watched too many one-day home improvement shows on HGTV and DIY Network because we completely underestimated how long it would take to paint the room. We spent Friday removing the wall cabinets, patching the walls, taping the room, and going to IKEA. We spent Saturday priming and Sunday painting the ceiling. We finally painted the walls today and met with the IKEA contractor and our plumber friend. Now we just need to paint the trim, order the new cabinets, build, install, have pluming and electrical work down, etc., etc., not to mention the flooring. So, we've merely started the kitchen remodel.

Afternoon at Lewis River Falls -or- Day We Almost Lost Mom

Yesterday, Scott, Sheena, Ma, and I took what we thought would be a short drive to the Lower Lewis Falls at Gifford Pinchot National Forest. However, we didn't realize 40 miles from I-5 would take hours on winding forest roads. We finally got to the falls about an hour before dusk. Scott scrambled to take pictures (which I hope to post).

At some point, Scott, Sheena and I took the stairs down to the falls. I thought mom saw us from the viewing area overlooking the falls, but apparently she thought we headed back to the car. Worse, mom took a different path to another parking area. When we came back up and didn't find mom at the car, we all became worried. We were basically in the middle of nowhere in a vacant park, out of cellphone range, looking for mom in a dark, densely wooded area with poorly marked trails. Of course, we then started to assume the worse like she fell down the canyon into the river or some horrible Blaire Witch scenario (the only soul we saw in the last miles into the forest was a suspicious-looking hunter). Fortunately, Sheena found mom after twenty minutes of worry. In hindsight, the area between the river and parking lot was relatively small, but still it was creepy not being able to find mom right away.

French drain AKA ditch

Before we could do a more visually satisfying home improvement project like paint the kitchen, Scott forced us to do the responsible thing and install a boring French drain before the fall rains. Its fancy European name is misleading as a French drain is basically a type of drainage ditch with pipe.

"It could be anything from an infection to a tumor."

Ugh. Not something one wants to hear from their doctor.

it's (still) snowing

IMG_0645, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

After a couple of false over-dramatic bad weather forecasts this week, the second snow storm of the week has met expectations. The fine snow powder has fallen constantly all day turning to freezing snow.

After dragging Scott to Slumdog Millionaire, Scott dragged me across the river to take pictures.

Here's Scott's pics:

IMG_0649, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

poor soggy teddy bear

Scott found this poor teddy bear along the trail to Wahclella Falls.

Scott's sister, Lacy, is visiting from Nebraska for a long weekend. They are both photography-crazy:

the end of an era . . .

After at least five years and my co-worker's prodding, I've finally retired my worn-out Coffee People mug. I remember how shiny it was when it was new and how I justified buying it because metal would last so much longer. But after one too many dribbles, it's time to move on.

perils of updating a Facebook profile

Yikes. This is an awful and tragic story, but it does remind me of the time Scott seemed to have inadvertently ended our relationship for several hours on Facebook.

A few months ago after we had set-up our Facebook profiles officially confirming our relationship, I noticed Scott's profile suddenly listed him as "single". At first I assumed it was a mistake -- especially since everything seemed to be fine with us after three years. But then I began to wonder and thought, "Gee, that would be a perfect subtle, non-confrontational way to dump someone -- something I certainly would not be above doing." Fortunately, Scott re-assured me it was a mistake and no meat cleavers were needed, but I still check occassionally. :)

(via DrudgeReport.com)

Vancouver-Victoria weekend

Scott and I had a great time in Vancouver and Victoria last weekend. Here are Scott's pics:

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Friday

We explored Downtown Vancouver. Scott found the Vancouver Public Library which we were mainly interested in because it was shown in Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately, we didn't see "Helo".

IMG_7119.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

The waterfront near the site of my first trip to Vancouver, Expo 86.

IMG_7209, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Scott swears this was the view from our room at the Empire Landmark Hotel, but still don't remember it.

IMG_7216, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

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Saturday

Early Saturday morning, we scouted out Vancouver's old town, Gastown.

IMG_7272.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

We had lunch on Granville Island where Scott took this photo:

IMG_7839, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

In the afternoon, we rented bikes and toured Stanley Park:

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Sunday

We caught the ferry to Vancouver Island. Victoria is beautiful. We'll definitely plan on spending more time there on our next visit.

IMG_8828, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

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Monday

We caught a ferry back to Washington. I underestimated how long the ferry crossings took, so next time we'll plan more time.

IMG_9179, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Happy Thanksgiving and vote, eh?

Scott and I finally took our long talked about trip to Vancouver and Victoria, BC, this weekend. We didn't realize it when we made our plans, but yesterday was Canada's Thanksgiving Day, so we had an early turkey dinner Sunday night.

We were not able to escape the constant barrage of campaign ads since today is Canada's federal election day, so we saw and heard numerous campaign ads throughout the weekend. Interestingly, the red and blue color scheme is reversed with Conservatives (Wiki) in blue and Liberals (Wiki) in red. The US was mentioned in their campaign ads and we even saw a Obama For President billboard outside of Victoria.

The Oregon Garden

Ma, Scott, and I visited The Oregon Garden for the first time on Sunday. Admittedly, I'm not a plant enthusiast, so I expected to be bored. However, The Garden did make a good effort to make the gardens interesting to non-green-thumbs. They had a tram ride introducing the gardens, fountains, water features, and a diverse selection of plants.

Okay, I admit that I was still a little bored and the hot, sunny weather didn't help either. I would be interested in re-visiting the garden in the fall on an overcast day. Scott and I may take advantage of a midweek special offered at the new Oregon Garden Resort.

Here are some of Scott's beautiful pictures:

IMG_5087.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

IMG_4792.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

IMG_4757.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Here are my crappy cellphone pictures:

off-line for a little bit

Sorry, I haven't felt like spending my free time blogging. I've been working long hours on the computer this past week, so I've been savoring my off-line time. Hopefully, work will settle down next week.

lazy holiday weekend

The three-day holiday weekend caught us unprepared. We had no plans or excursions planned. It was great!

On Friday, Scott found the amazing Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. It's was a little hike from the trail head through canyon to a spectacular multi-tier falls that cuts through a narrow, lush crevasse. Surprisingly the canyon was humid and smelly which is unusual for the usually windy, cool gorge.

I'm amazed that after all these years visiting the gorge, there are still some amazing falls to find.

We had dinner with mom at Gustav's and then crashed at home for the rest of the holiday.

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On Saturday we spent the morning doing nothing useful. Our latest obsession is You Are What You Eat on BBC America. It has almost inspired me to go on a diet. Well, almost.

Sheena came over in the afternoon and we took our first bike ride of the year. We biked from downtown through the Eastbank Esplanade and Springwater Corridor to Oaks Park. It's a relatively short ride, but we were so tired that we had to turn around. We'll definitely need to do more training rides if we plan on doing the Providence Bridge Pedal next month.

Having been denied Russell Street BBQ on the holiday, we had dinner there on Saturday night.

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On Sunday, we went to church and had brunch with mom and Sheena in the 'Couv. We then picked rasberrys at Kruger's farm on Sauvie's Island with Paula. I was not a fan of strawberry picking when we visited the farm two years ago, but raspberries are much easier to pick and the weather was much cooler. We have so many berries.

We ended the weekend watching WALL-E which was terrific.