lil' professor

i'm too tired right now to blog about last weekend, so that will have to wait until later.

for now, check out this link for something fun. my brother sent me this link this evening.

did you play with this when you were young? i'm curious!

triple falls hike

this was taken about right near where we turned around to go back. little kerouac was absolutely pooped by the time we got back, but really happy. i bet he'll sleep well tonight!

triple falls hike

pretty flowers on the hike.

triple falls hike

kerouac is normally afraid of water & avoids it. either he was just too hot & tired to care, or he's getting braver. in any case, he just laid down right in the water & cooled off. i've never seen a dog do that.

triple falls

here's a view of triple falls. it's kind of obvious how it got its name. very pretty. check it out up close. click on it.

triple falls hike

we stopped at a scenic viewpoint. here are a couple pictures of the columbia river and one of kerouac. kerouac was found by his current owner on the side of the road. he appeared to be beaten & abused, and after two years, is still afraid of gun shaped objects & cameras. somehow i managed to get several pictures of him today!

triple falls hike

today, i went for a hike with my sister (in law). she just finished her first year of medical school at OHSU (oregon health sciences university), and is leaving on wednesday for a trip to europe. she had today relatively open, and as i have all mondays free from teaching this summer, we headed out to the gorge for a nice hike. we began to the left of horsetail falls, and then reached ponytail falls (pictured). the trail goes behind the falls - so cool! you can see m in the picture with her boyfriend's dog, kerouac.
sorry that the one picture is to the side. i haven't quite figured out how to rotate pictures...

father's day

my parents hosted a father's day dinner, but we provided the wine, main course, & dessert. j's parents came, as did his sister. it was a great dinner of salad, grilled veggies, chicken skewers, and the strawberry rhubarb crisp. happy father's day, dads!

japanese garden

in portland, the japanese garden is walking distance from the rose garden, so we purchased a membership & hung out for awhile. my favorite part is always seeing the koi in the pond!

lazy weekend.

this was a bit of a lazy weekend. saturday morning, i watched the movie "lucky number slevin," which j had already seen, while he ran errands. we went grocery shopping for father's day in the afternoon, and watched some other movie, which i can't even recall, so it must've not been very good. on sunday, we cooked a rhubarb strawberry crisp for the father's day dinner, and then headed out to the rose garden. there were tons of people out!

kittens. :)

tuesday night we went to visit the kittens at our friends' house. they loved j! they were climbing all over him. so cute! thanks for the martinis, d & j, & thanks for sharing the kitten fun!

lecture evening

monday night j, my mom, & i attended a lecture held through the world affairs oregon organization. hafez al-mirazi was speaking. he used to be the head of al jazeera for washington d.c., and was on t.v. frequently right after 9/11. i don't remember seeing him on t.v., but j does. he's now back in egypt. it was very interesting hearing his opinions on america & politics. i agreed with his point of view on everything - he was very level headed. too bad he can't run for office - he's totally got a grip on the world today and what needs to be accomplished. the funny part of the evening was his description of a popular t-shirt in egypt - the front of the t-shirt says "come to america," and the back of the t-shirt says "before america comes to you." pretty funny, but unfortunately true.

yay! j's home!

yay! j got home on sunday afternoon, and in the early evening we headed over to the kennedy school to help k celebrate a birthday. we hung out with the birthday crowd & enjoyed burgers n' brew n' birthday cake, then went inside to watch blades of glory. it was super funny - much much so much better than we had anticipated. i highly recommend it to everyone, at least for those with a will ferrell appreciation. after the movie, k was still there with some more friends, so we stopped to talk for awhile before heading home. i love mcmenamins! :)

strawberry fields forever

we were supposed to have work done on the house friday morning, but the workers had to reschedule for monday, so i spent the morning picking strawberries out on sauvie island. it took me about two hours to wash, core, & slice all of them. i've been eating strawberries by the bowlful!
today/yesterday i drove my sister-in-law & her boyfriend & two of her friends around wine tasting. it was a rainy day, so it was a perfect day to be heading out. today was the day of the big rose festival parade, and it usually rains every year for the big event. this year was definitely not an exception. we hit just three places - archery summit, domaine drouhin, & chehalem. i loved the chehalem reds!

kittens & martinis & boston legal oh my!

tuesday night, d & j invited me over to their house for martinis & to watch the last episode of boston legal which they had taped the previous week. j left on tuesday for kentucky on business, and will be returning today, so it was just me. d & j are foster parenting some kittens, and we had fun watching them play before their bedtime. they're soooo cute! thanks so much for a fun evening. it was great to have something fun to do after a looong day of teaching.

wedding - the day after.

sunday morning after the wedding, we slept in for as long as we could before having to check out of our room at a bed & breakfast. we walked around town for awhile before attending the post wedding brunch. again, i still forgot that i had a camera, so no pictures. brunch was fabulous - tons of great food! it was nice to have one more opportunity to say goodbye to everybody. after the brunch, we checked out the georgia o'keefe museum in downtown santa fe. we rented the audio guides, and really enjoyed them & learned a lot. the museum was smaller than i had thought it would be, but i saw styles of paintings i had never seen before by her. afterwards, we made our way back to albuquerque & hung out in a pub in the airport. i was happy to find there was free wireless in the albuquerque airport (just like here in portland), and they even had tables throughout lined with powerstrips!

after wedding

after the actual ceremony, i totally forgot about my camera & taking pictures. it was a great time. lots of great food & drink & great people in a very beautiful setting. i hope a & e have a long & happy marriage!

wedding

the wedding of a & e.

wedding

cousin (?) j & uncle j as smashingly handsome ushers.

museum hill

we spent saturday visiting museums, before the wedding. we ventured up to museum hill & explored the museum of international folk art, and the museum of indian arts & culture.

loretto chapel

here are some pictures of the loretto chapel, located in downtown santa fe. it houses the "mysterious stairway". it was created without nails or supports, and the carpenter disappeared after building it without asking for any compensation.

rehearsal dinner barbeque

our real reason for our trip to new mexico was to attend j's cousin's wedding. here are some pictures from friday night's barbecue.

los alamos

after getting hot & sweaty hiking around bandelier national monument, we headed to los alamos. we had lunch at a cafe, and checked out the bradbury science museum. being in los alamos, it had a lot of information about the building of the atomic bombs. here's a picture of "fat man," a replica of one of the two atomic bombs dropped on japan.

bandelier national park

on friday, we got up really early and drove to bandelier national park. the pueblo indians lived in dwellings in the walls of the canyons about 600 years ago. there are ladders you can climb to check out the caves - we had lots of fun! j kept looking longingly at the rock, but unfortunately for him, the site is sacred & you're not allowed to climb there.

albuquerque

last weekend we flew to new mexico. we saw our friend v & had dinner with him, and spent thursday night in albuquerque. this is a view of central st, which used to be rt 66.