60th birthday

friday night we all went out for dinner to celebrate my mother in law's 60th birthday, which is actually on tuesday. we gathered at the nouveau mexican restaurant d.f. in the pearl district. in the first picture, she's drinking a shot of tequila which we were more than happy to order for her. j & i both got moles that were fantastic. i'd recommend the restaurant. they have an extensive tequila menu; you can do tequila tastings. i'm not a big fan of tequila- it gives me bad headaches, and i don't enjoy lots of salt with my liquor (olives are ok, but salt encrusted glasses really turn me off). i'm much more a gin/whiskey person.

superbowl #41, 2007

on sunday, j & i went over to our friend b's house to watch the big game

here's a pic of c & i from saturday night at the hall street grill. we went to the beaverton arts council art show, where one of c's works was being shown, and then went out afterwards. there were tons of beavertonians at the show, which was held at the beaverton library in somewhat tight quarters. i plan to go back sometime this week to take another look at all the works. it was just too crowded to be able to get a good look!

MMMMMMMM!!!

two of my favorite things - manhattans and the profiteroles with chocolate syrup at bugotti's restaurant in cedar hills. yum yum yum! this pic is from a few weeks ago...

yucko. we've both been sick this week. i got this sinus cold thing last weekend, on friday, and it lasted through wednesday. then j started feeling sick, and stayed home thurs & yesterday from work. he usually never gets sick, but maybe all this stuff i pick up from students is starting to wear him down. :( i think the sinus cold is going around, because one of my students' dad was getting it yesterday. another one of my students cancelled due to the flu, which i DEFINITELY don't want to get. so, we're lying pretty low this weekend. tonight we have an art show to go to at the beaverton library - our friend is one of the featured ones, and tomorrow we have a superbowl party. other than that, we're just relaxing, experiencing our random pick of netflix movies. the weather has been gorgeous lately, really sunny & crisp, but this morning it's finally getting back to the normal cloudy rainy weather. hopefully it will mean new snow up on the mountains, because as of yesterday it had to be fairly icy, with all the sun & skiing.

very very sad...

please WATCH THIS.

bro's new company

HEY KIDS!!! CHECK OUT ATTENDIO!!!

intense movies.

i just finished watching a movie with j, the heart is deceitful above all things. i fear i may have twisted dreams tonight. it was a Really Good Movie, but very very disturbing. i was tired from taking my parents to the airport this morning at 5am, so i had no energy to go out. we went to burgerville for dinner (got take-out: pepper bacon tillamook cheeseburgers, sweet potato fries, and a chocolate hazelnut milkshake) and watched the movie. winona ryder played a very twisted minor role. the movie is about a poor boy who was raised first by foster parents, until his mother, a prostitute/drug addict, won custody. the movie begins with him being dropped off at his mother's tiny apartment, and follows his nomadic life on the road with her.
last weekend, we watched the salton sea, starring val kilmer and vincent d'onofrio. it was also twisted, but a little more positive than tonight's movie. it's actually one i wouldn't mind seeing again. i can't believe i had never heard of it. we got it through netflix. every few months, i look at the local newspaper online and make a list of all the movies i've never seen, whether i've heard of them or not, and then enter them into our queue at netflix. therefore, it's often a big surprise when we pop dvds into the player. we've seen many movies we wouldn't have seen otherwise (e.g.- chicken little, which really wasn't all that bad! in fact, i could use a little harmless children's story right about now, after that movie.). anyway, i highly recommend the salton sea. it's a satisfying tale of revenge; very edgy, witty, and not for those sensitive to violence.
tomorrow's going to be a day of relaxation & more taxes work. i feel a cold coming on, and i need to sleep it away. j's going climbing with canadian p tomorrow, as the weather is clear & sunny & there hasn't been any new snow lately. we may venture out to the coast on sunday...

new zealand

has anybody been there, who reads this blog??? if so, please let me know your favorite places. we're beginning to decide on an itinerary for the very near future.

tax world

this past weekend was a boring one, for the most part. i spent it preparing my taxes. they're not completely finished, as i haven't received all the officially required documents, but i've gotten most of the yucky stuff out of the way. the house is a mess, with piles of paper & folders all over the floor. what a ritual to go through every year! i prefer getting it done as early as possible, so i don't have to worry about it the rest of the year. i have a professional actually DO them for me, but i have to compile all the information myself, which is the "dirty," not-fun part.

birthday

happy birthday eyhkm!!! i hope you have fun things planned for your special day over there in germany. it's not every year that one gets a birthday that lands right on a saturday - party hardy!!!

new form of weight loss?

my friend D had an interesting post (well, actually all of his posts are pretty thought provoking) on his blog regarding a man who lost weight with the new nintendo wii setup. check it out here. the very first time i heard about the wii was on southpark. the day following the wii episode, i heard a discussion on npr about the wii vs the new playstation, and i found out it was actually a real thing. i thought the wii was something the southpark boys had made up. anyway, i think it's a fabulous move on the part of the video game creators. finally there's a way to play the games that forces one to move around instead of sitting on the couch. it's a great way to tackle the nation's obesity.

portland at its best

here's why they close down the schools when there's an inch of snow or more...
f%$%^&ing hilarious clip of portlanders' driving

ENJOY!!!
j found this on a climbers online forum.
if only people would know their limitations & not go out without chains or studded tires...
sigh.
school was cancelled again today, by the way.

tonight we had the pleasure of being invited to canadian p's house for a yummy dinner of ribs. we made it there safely despite the icy roads. luckily, most everyone was staying off the roads, so driving was easy. it's been such a long time since i've had ribs that great! we brought along "something green" and some freshly baked peanut butter cookies.

SNOW DAY!!!!!!

there's not that much snow here, but the schools are closed. i was supposed to volunteer this morning at the neighborhood elementary school, but my district's school system was the LAST to cancel school. unbelievable... kids were already en-route on buses, which is the whole reason to cancel in the first place. i bet beaverton will catch some flak for that! it's not really the snow, but the ice that makes travel treacherous here. there are lots of hills, and the cities aren't well equiped to handle the snow & ice because it happens so infrequently. the highways are an absolute mess right now with trucks & buses stuck. glad i'm home with the kids, and the hubby is on his way home. as you can see in the picture above, the kids aren't big fans of the snow!

after dinner, we settled back & watched legend, the 1985 movie starring tom cruise. we watched the director's cut version, which we got from netflix. i didn't remember the score sounding so beautiful. probably because (which i just learned) the version played in america had a completely different soundtrack; not the amazing one by the late jerry goldsmith. i read the american one was really choppy & had a different ending. i couldn't remember the ending from when i saw it years ago. i just realized that mia sara, who plays princess lily, also played sloane peterson in ferris bueller's day off. in this picture, j is all settled in, wearing my scarf & staying warm with persia. this was a fun weekend, but very busy. i think i'll sleep well tonight!

since we had our x-country skis until monday, we went out to teacup lake today up on mt hood for some more skiing. i fell down many times, because i just couldn't figure out how to stop in the stupid x-c skis without edges. it hurt. :( we tried a couple blue trails until i got sick of falling & went back to the main green run. it was pretty out there, but for some reason i woke up on the wrong side of the bed and got crabbier as the day went on. ah well. on our drive back, we saw a puppy run across a 4 lane road which caused an accident. we hung around as witnesses, but the parties involved declined to take our names & phone numbers. a big mistake on the side of the party that got hit, but all you can do is try to help. the stupid puppy emerged unscathed, of course. luckily nobody else was hurt, either.
we went grocery shopping when we got back and returned with some kick-ass beef teriyaki stir-fry. we drank some of our walla walla wine & listened to the splendid table as we cooked. if i ever got an ipod, downloading podcasts of that show is something i'd actually use it for.

k made b birthday cupcakes. they were really great. the borcht b made was also great. i'm not normally a big fan of beets, but they were good in the soup. his cabin is beautiful! we were honored to be invited. we had a great time playing cranium. we were on the couch team, but unfortunately the cushion team won... in case you wondered, pharaoh is spelled p h a r a o h, not pharoah. damn it!

b was showing off by traversing all the streams & gullies without removing his skis, so we finally had to push him over to put the birthday boy in his place!

saturday, we rented cross country skis and headed out to our friend b's property up on mt. hood. he invited a bunch of friends over in honor of his 30th birthday (which is on tues) for a celebration including playing in the snow, borcht, & wholesome fun. the weather was perfect. i can't say the x-c skiing was exactly successful, as there were streams & gullies every 100 yards. we weren't traversing on an official trail, but an old road that the government didn't want people driving on anymore, so they put in all the gullies.

this is a picture of my food. it doesn't look nearly as pretty as the scallops, but it tastes much much better. "so yummy" says j. it's cinghiale, also known as wild boar. i got addicted to it in spoleto italy, at osteria dell'enoteca. the tagliatele is so thick but tender. i get this dish every time i go to serratto. for all those portlanders reading this, serratto also makes an amazing bread pudding. i'm not normally a fan, but we tried it on friday, and it was really velvety & custardy.

it was my mom's birthday on friday, so we took her out for dinner to serratto to celebrate. it's a great italian restaurant. she had the scallops, pictured here. it looked kinda pretty...

my dear friend j has a very cool website - i suggest all of you visit it if you haven't yet already. she recently posted this utube clip, which was f&#*ing hilarious. YOU MUST CHECK IT OUT if you want a good laugh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGwBqqeJKMI&eurl

i hope y'all are having a good week. i just returned from volunteering for SMART (Start Making A Reader Today). i don't know how much i'm helping. my first reading partner is responsive, but the second one doesn't pay much attention to me, as she speaks mainly spanish and little english. i don't think she likes me. :( ah well. i'll keep trying. both today are just in kindergarten. i'm starting doing tuesdays as well next week, and those will be 2nd & 3rd graders, so perhaps i'll be more helpful for them.

uh-oh...

so i have a close friend, a, who loves to knit, and she has a blog where she posts almost every day about things she's knitting. her huge stash of yarn rivals my husband's "stash" of rock climbing equipment. a, this post is for you!!! :) i purchased these needles and yarn from knit purl, a knitting store in downtown portland. i have no idea who made the yarn or what it's called; i just asked for something with orange in it which would be good for making a scarf, which i assume is what one should start with as a beginning "first" project. they sold me the needles, saying if i started with circular needles (whatever that is) i wouldn't be afraid of them. i guess circular needles are scary, but they don't look that scary to me. whatever. i suppose i'll find out. for now, i need to rope someone into teaching me some knitting secrets...

Very Fun WeekEnd. part 2.

sunday morning, j & i woke up late and made french toast. so decadent! i had a teaching workshop in the afternoon, and upon returning at 6pm, i found out we were having this goofball over for dinner. just kidding, p! :) j picked up a stirfry (after i told him that beef stew takes an HOUR to cook AFTER all the chopping), and surprised us all with the makings for banana splits for dessert. in the pictures is j's banana split handiwork. i can't remember the last time i had one. his are marvelous!
to top it all off, i spent the last hour of the evening baking some pain au chocolats. my brother gave me a cookbook for x-mas from tartine, a bakery near his house in san francisco, and it had a recipe for croissants. i've never made them, and felt up to the challenge. the dough took a few DAYS to make, and had been sitting in the freezer. they didn't come out so well. i stupidly put them on un-rimmed baking sheets, so butter leaked everywhere, and i was unfortunately using the lower oven, which is NOT self cleaning (i'm lucky to have two, and the upper one is self cleaning). so now i have a big mess to clean up. the croissants came out pretty greasy & buttery. i had one this morning, but i think i'll freeze the rest. if i ate one every morning (there are 18) i think i'd gain about 10 lbs. i'm off to go running now!

Very Fun WeekEnd.

saturday morning, j & i woke up at 5:45 to go skiing & catch our ride with a friend at 6:30. storms had dumped a foot of fresh snow overnight, so we trekked up to skibowl up on mt. hood. it was the best day of skiing i've had in a long time. my legs are STILL sore from it. i'm a very cautious, slow skier, and i do lots of turns, so it's always quite a workout on my legs. anyway, our friend p's girlfriend n was in town for the weekend, and she went skiing for the very FIRST time. she did fabulously, never falling down, and always making it off the chairlift. p & n invited us over for a martini party later that evening, along with half the Rock Squad. in the first photo, p & i are having a photo-off; n"i'm a skiing rockstar" & j are also in the picture.

ARGH!!! but yay!!!!

ahh- a nice new sink and new silestone countertop in my old house. a word of advice to remodelers - DO NOT USE HOME DEPOT!!! you end up having to do SO many things yourself, which if you're not already a construction savvy person, you have to end up playing one and hiring lots of extra people. finally everything was taken care of by saturday. however, i was so exhausted by the past three weeks that i slept in unti 9:30 this morning. shameful, but i needed it! j & i have decided to just embrace the 50's/60's decor of our house rather than mess with remodeling. so much easier (not to mention cheaper)! thanks to all of our friends who helped us out!

cuties!

here are our kids, enjoying the new couch and a new vest j gave me for x-mas. persia has the "scary" eyes!

new year, new possibilities

well, it's now 2007. hard to believe another year has gone by. 2006 brought many great things, and i'm excited for things to come. i'm going to try to live this year to the fullest, making the most of my free time. i live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and i hope to enjoy it more. 2006 brought trips to ireland, italy, & switzerland, among others. 2007 will bring trips to florida, new mexico, perhaps british columbia & more. woo-hoo!

my cousins from washington were able to make it to the party, on their way back from san jose. what a cutie little h is!

we were all ready at 10 min to midnight to pour toasting champagne. j & i had several bottles of champagne left over from the wedding, so we put them to good use. we also used our toasting glasses from the wedding, which never got to be used on july 8. they still had bows on them & everything.

innocent decapitation

m is having fun with the gingerbread boys made by my mother. poor boy lost his head!

happy new year everyone!

here's the crew from our new year's eve party last night. we spent most of the night watching stupid climbing movies - the eiger sanction and vertical limit. everytime something inaccurate would happen climbing wise, everyone would drink. we had pbr at hand so intoxication was slight. nobody got sick- the only puking happening was by persia, my little kitty, who coughed up a hairball this morning after she got canned tuna, a special treat for her.

don't drop the wookie!!!

the day after christmas, i went with my cousins s & d & my mother to omsi to check out the star wars exhibit. the line to get in was really long, and when we got our tickets, it was for 2 hours later, so we had fun looking at & playing with the other exhibits.

R.I.P., Rose and Raindrop!

one of our favorite old hangouts, the rose & raindrop, is now no more as of today. it was a bar in southeast portland, which used to be a funeral parlor, and supposedly was haunted. here we are, toasting it one last time the weekend before x-mas. it's closing because rent is increasing too much for the business to continue. we'll miss you!!!

a few weekends ago, we were in the rental house, finishing up the ceiling on a friday. after finishing up the paint on the ceiling & cleaning up the floor, we were tired & hungry, so we headed over to our old hangout, the st. johns pub & had a brew & some west african chicken peanut soup (it's amazing!). we were looking through some of the books on the shelf near our couch, and found this drawing inside a cover. portland is weird. luckily, i like it that way.

merry christmas, happy holidays everyone. i hope everyone who reads this is enjoying the holiday, religious or not. j & i are off to make turkey & stuffing & artichoke dip. we're cooking the turkey & dip at his parents' house, and then we're all going to my parents' house for dinner around 4pm. busy day! i think this is my second time making a turkey. we're opting for the bag method of cooking. i hope it works! anyway, i hope everyone is as lucky as i am to have such a wonderful, caring family. cheers!

ucky yucky

i had the stomach flu today. it woke me up at 3am. i had to go to the dr to rule out appendicitis. i'm to attack pepto bismol with ferocity. what a waste of a day. all day in bed, and no good sleeping being accomplished. i feel as if i were run over by a train, so achy. can't find a comfortable position in bed. i just want to feel normal again. :(

who woulda thunk it???

my friend billy pinecone told me that on the very same day (today) that i posted the turducken on my blog (see below), lil' monk (whoever that is...) suggested that as an entree for the chinese kung fu club o' deKalb holydaze party! whooaaa. the stars are aligning. perhaps i should buy a lottery ticket.

look at these cuties!!!!!! they're my friends' dogs. so well behaved to stay still for a picture like this! i just had to post this adorable picture.

CHICKEN PORN

so... i was browsing online at my favorite grocery store, new seasons market, and saw turducken listed under "specialty meats". i was looking for things to cook for christmas eve dinner, to order ahead. i already have a turkey ordered to cook for christmas day. i had no idea this sort of thing existed. evidently, a turducken is a deboned turkey stuffed with a deboned chicken stuffed with a deboned duck. the name is a portmanteau of those three items. it's also made with the turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. j & i had a bit of a chuckle over it. couldn't it also be a chuckenturd? regardless, both sound gross. this turducken in the picture (from wikipedia) has bacon on the top.

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
our stupid power is back on, apparently as of 1am this morning. there was a huge wind storm thursday night, which knocked out power 6 minutes before i finished teaching. luckily i assumed the worst would happen and had a headlamp with me, which i used to guide the student & parent out to their car. however, i ended up having to cancel all my lessons on friday ($$ i could really use). we toughed it out thurs & friday night without heat. we woke up early sat morning at 6am to be picked up by our awesome friend m at 6:30am to go skiing, because there was no point sitting around in a freezing house. i didn't have the best skiing day, because it was colder than usual, and i wasn't wearing enough clothing (long story). had we had power, i would've had internet access to see what the weather was going to be like, & would've been more prepared. i spent more time than usual indoors, while the boys (who never get cold) played. i think i was just partly chilled from spending so much time in a cold house. we finally gave in to our parents' offer of staying at their house. luckily the power was finally fixed, so now we're getting our house back to normal. lots of candles to put away. dishes & clothes which can be washed. rotten food to be thrown away. my kids' recital is this afternoon, and we have work to do in the house afterwards before a holiday party in the evening. gotta get going...

U, CONGRATULATIONS ON WINNING THE CELLO POSITION IN THE DETROIT SYMPHONY!!!!
YOU ROCK!!!
WE'LL MISS YOU!

looking forward to the cookie baking party. :)

last night we enjoyed the movie "stranger than fiction" and dinner thanks to a giftcard and free movie tickets. today i threw together a pot roast & put it in the crock pot before leaving for the old house to work on the hole in the ceiling. our friend m helped us out with it - we couldn't have done it without him. we still have to add more plaster gunk to the new drywall, texture it, and paint it, but that should be pretty straightforward. i got home and realized i had set the time for the pot roast, but never actually turned it on. i hope the meat is still ok. i'm still kicking myself... it's just the second time i've used the crock pot. guess i'm still getting used to it.

we got our treeth (fake tree - it says treeth on the box) all assembled & decorated over sun-wed this week. vinny has evil eyes in this picture, as i took it with all the lights off. it also partially shows our new couch, which finally arrived on tuesday. we ordered it way back on labor day weekend, and it took a long time to show up.

here's a group of a few of us wine tasting. j, k, j, and t. j & t live in walla walla, and k is the captain of j's indoor soccer team.

here's a picture of the icy grape vines in walla walla. it's colder there than in portland. it was actually supposed to snow the weekend before we went to washington, or at least there was supposed to be an ice storm. thankfully, the weather ended up being warmer than all the forecasters thought, because we wouldn't have made the drive if we had to deal with an ice storm. i was a little cold-weather hungry, though, so i found the ice particularly beautiful.

j got me a canon powershot sd600 digital elph camera for my birthday. this is one of the first pictures i took with it. i'm wearing the "fetchings" a knitted for me.

when we got home from walla walla, we came home to this: all my thick running/skiing socks gathered into one place by the food dishes by vinny. for some reason he's always loved dragging my thick socks across the house over to the feeding bowls. i guess he thinks he kills them, and likes to show it off. he drags them out of my lowest drawer in my bureau. i don't really understand it, but i do think it's cute.

our hotel in walla walla was just a holiday inn, but it was wonderful because it had full breakfasts with waffles & hard boiled eggs & such, and it had an indoor pool and hot tub, as you can see in the picture.

last weekend we spent in walla walla, washington. we drove there after i finished teaching at 6:30 last friday, and arrived there at 11:30pm. we were there to do a lot of wine tasting. the first weekend of december is a major wine tasting weekend. there's barrel tasting almost everywhere, and they have a holiday parade on saturday night. we were there with friends of ours, and had a good time and found some decent wines.