off to ods for the week. sunny skies ahead, it should be a great week if i can shake this bad cold that started this morning.

happy birthday ethan!

what a beautiful day. summer weather ... 70 degrees! drinking local brewed beer outside on the patio of brewpubs. and visiting vancouver, wa for the first time in my life these past two days. it is a surprisingly pleasant and nice town. esther short park is pretty cool.

I WON!

the willamette rive is the "third most endangered river in america" according to the news. hmmm. i can believe that.

i think suri is a great name.

This weekend was a sick weekend. paul was super-sick. we went to the doctor and luckily he did not have strep. the good news is he will get better with rest and ibuprofin, the bad news is that ODS is non-stop so he's not going to get much rest (esp. hiking around all day with dozens of sixth graders).

tonight nicole, ethan and i spent hours making adorable baby shower invitations (clarification/update: for nicole's sister in law who is due in two months). and on thursday i'll start making heidi's bridal shower invites (we are doing the exact same ones!). they are GREAT. like this concept but even cuter (using the same stamp).


I am very intersted in becoming a doula, but I'm still unsure if I should take the next step or not. Mother Tree is having a basic class 'So you want to be a doula?' on may 13th. I would love to go, but it's $65, and because I'm not sure if the doula thing is even for me yet, that seems like a lot of money. I am leaning more and more towards attending. I've been wrestling with the thought of studying midwifery. Being a doula seems like such a great thing for me to be able to participate in. It's kinda like being a midwife and counselor and friend and coach and encourager all in one, but not exactly any of those solely or specifically.

gtg. tomorrow morning i am up early again. 6:58am bus ride to vancouver, wa where i'll be attending a GIS conference. hip hip.

an ice cream truck just drove by. is it that time of year already?

IT'S OFFICIAL:

We're moving to Madison, Wisconsin in August.

I'll probably write more about this in the upcoming months. We'll be there for at least five years. Five prime years. Paul obtaining his Phd in Sociology and me, well, we'll see what happens. It'll be a bittersweet move. Of course, I don't want to move from Portland. I don't think I'll ever will. But it's a necessity, and I have to admit that I am excited to start over and establish ourselves in a new place and community. There's a lot to look forward to, and also to be nervous about.

One thing that we do know is that we're going to take advantage of this summer to stay in Oregon (which will be only my second full summer here in the past nine years) and explore the outdoors as much as possible. Once Paul is back from Outdoor School I will begin to work four-tens each week, alternating M-Th, Tues-F, so that every other week we'll have a four-day weekend. We'll be heading to the coast, the Cascades, glacial lakes, the high desert, caves, temporate rainforests, lava fields, circumnavigating mt. hood, to hot springs, and many other wonders. Backpacking a ton. Taking in new sights and old favorites (Smith Rock, Newberry Crater, Black Butte, Neah-kah-nie, the Gorge). Maybe a trip up to the Olympics or the San Juan Islands. Our time is already much too short.

Whew. Another long weekend, but this time a more draining one.

Friday was pretty cool, but L-O-N-G. Found out that I had to be out at 135th & Stark by 6:45am. With no car, and no short bus options, I left my apartment at 5:30am (I haven't been up this early since I took a redeye flight!) to bike the 10.1 miles in the dark. Yep, that's right, due to daylight savings time, it was pitch black pretty much the whole way there. Good thing I have decent bike lights. I took the Springwater Corridor to the I-205 Bike Route, then up Division and arrived at David Douglas High School right on time. Oh, and I forgot to mention that right as I was leaving my driveway my entire chain fell off my bike and I had to put it back on...luckily it was fairly easy to do.

Anyways, we rode for 3 hours on the bus with 43 high school students and arrived at the Newport Aquarium a bit late. Had a class, a self-guided tour, and meandered around a bit. The old Keiko/Free Willy killer whale tank is now turned into this exhibit called Passages of the Deep. It's one of those things where you walk through some acrylic tubes where the water, sharks and fish are swimming all around you. Pretty neat. I learned that sturgeon also live in sea water. After lunch we headed over to the Hatfield Marine Science Center, a part of Oregon State University, and had a two hour class on the various phylums of marine animals. Very informative with lots of living examples for us to touch and observe. After a brief stop at the beach, we spent another 3 hours on the bus back to school, and I started biking home at 6:50pm. A full, tiring, but lovely, 12 hour day plus 2.5 hours of bike commuting. Luckily, my lovely husband returned back from ODS before I got home, hopped on his bike, and met me at mile 5.5 on the return trip home. :o)

Saturday was mostly spent at home with Paul, watching movies, talking about grad school, and then doing laundry.

Sunday was supposed to be spent with Kate on a grand adventure, but instead it was one of the worst days ever. I was super-sick. Stayed in bed all day long, staring blankly at the tv. Barely ate, barely drank. My stomach had a life of its own and was in control all day. So sick. Finally crashed sometime late at night and then woke up feeling semi-better when my manager called the next morning. Went into work at 10:30 with much better health. I'm still feeling very low-energy, but happily feeling much better.

i am spending the entire day tomorrow (7am-7pm straight) as a field trip leader with a bunch of high schoolers. wish me luck!

This weekend was fabulous and gloriously long. Part of the reason has to do with taking Friday off from work to spend with Paul. Originally we were going to drive up to Seattle for the day to visit the University of Washington, but ultimately we decided that since Paul really isn't seriously considering the Udub program, that we should spent his last day of spring break off in a more meaningful way.

We ended up spending the morning at REI, where, as always, we spent longer than expected--and we paid less than expected too! Paul got cycling shoes, shimano hybrid pedals, a bike tool, and chaco sandals. The chaco's turned out to be only $20 when they rang them up, even though they were listed on clearance as $40 (which we thought to be a great deal from the usual $99!). And another delightful surprise: the awesome pearl izumi cycling shoes, which are normally $135, were on sale for $109 according to the pricetag, but the store lady said that they really were $99.....but once we rang them up they turned out to be only $49.83!! Some great & unexpected deals at REI. Now if only I can resist going back to buy this Arcteryx waterproof bright yellow backpack that I fell in love with (on sale but still $89...ouch).

Anyways, once our forays at REI were over we made a stop at Depot Deli (the best sandwich place in the world!) to grab some food, and drove to Crown Point/The Vista House to each lunch while taking in the magnificent view. To the north (which you can't see in the picture) is Washington, and there are some small mountains nearby that were covered in snow just beyond the basalt cliffs with green pastures and farms on top. The sun was shining while we were there, and the mountains were shining too. To the east (the way you are facing in the picture) is the Columbia River Gorge...one of my favorite places in the world. The basalt cliffs are amazing in their own right, but what makes this place really special is the hundreds of waterfalls and canyons tucked into the crevasses: the most notable being Multnomah Falls. Some of my favorites are: Pony Tail Falls (which you can walk behind), Punchbowl Falls at Eagle Creek, and Triple Falls. And of course, who could not love, Oneonta Gorge whith its "hidden" waterfall. Unfortunately, none of these pictures display the depth, grandeur, or scale of these places....or the incredible shades of green from moss, ferns, wildflowers, and trees.

After a warm hour of sun, a large thunderstorm and rain shower started approaching up the Gorge. By this time we had just finished checking out the underwater fish-viewing at the Bonneville Dam fish ladder, and seeing the HUGE sturgeon at the hatchery (sturgeon are pretty cool--they've been around for over 200 million years, and grow to be gigantic!). We drove up the Historic Columbia River Highway and then on to Rowena Point through Mosier, Oregon (this blog's namesake). At Rowena, we watched the storm slowly move up the valley, with lightening brightening up the sky. We drove the remaining eight miles to The Dalles, where we stopped for dinner at a local diner. Then, the storm hitting us, we made our way back to Portland after dark with a long discussion. A perfect day.

And then Saturday! We didn't head out until the afternoon, but when we did we took off on our bikes and rode the Springwater Corridor from our apartment all the way to the edge of Gresham until the path turns into gravel (only 2 miles from Boring!). The Springwater Corridor is pretty cool, because it's an old railroad line that has been converted into a bike/multiuse path. It meanders through wetlands, farms, parks, and cities, eventually hooking up with some other paths to make a 40-mile loop. The Corridor itself starts in downtown Portland and ends up being around 21 miles. Paul and I biked to the Gresham MAX station, and took lightrail back into Portland to the Rose Quarter. Then we hopped back our our bikes and pedaled the remaining 5 miles along the Eastbank Esplanade (another bike/multiuse trail) which follows the Willamette River. All in all we pedaled 25.6 miles. Yes, my butt is sore today. :o) Once the weather gets a little sunnier we'll do the full 40 miles roundtrip.

And now, it's Sunday. Paul headed back to Outdoor School this morning, and I am going to spend the next 6 hours thoroughly cleaning our apartment from top to bottom before the book club girls come over for dinner tonight. I'm making a curry/vegetable/chicken dinner wich is SO GOOD.....it should be a nice night.