Adventures around Portland

Some random pictures from around Portland Monday night Music Night
Sam and Dan hosted the main course. Their theme was Australian and they went all out. Not too bad for a couple of batchelors who claim to not know how to cook.
We had a progressive dinner on Sunday between morning meeting and gospel meeting. It was a packed day with lots of driving between Vancouver, Portland and Gresham. Lots of good food and fun!
Lichen and I were on our way to the grocery store when the sun peaked through the clouds and we decided to explore the gorge instead. We found some beautiful waterfalls and had a lot of fun.

Lichen loves boatsAnd I love MONTANA!

These are my all purpose boots...I wear them for hiking, exploring, work, meeting and whatever else I happen to be doing.



St. Patricks day...I made green biscuits, green chocolate chip cookies and we had all kinds of other green food
Sisters at the Portland Winterhawks hockey game.

It's Been A While

Wow it is hard to believe how fast time is flying! We are almost halfway through 2009and summer is almost here! The past few months have been crazy and between a new job, computer problems and whatever other excuses I might try to make up the blogging has just not been done. Thanks goodness Beth is a little bit better at blogging than I am. February and March I was gone almost every weekend between a Roomate Rendevous in Denver with Beth and Sue, a weekend with Sue/Business trip, visiting family, time at the beach and several other random excursions. Here are some of the highlights!

Tristan loves his new baby cousin Wyatt

Costco Hotdogs! It doesn't get much better than this.
This view is hard to beat

Cold and Windy day at Rialto beach

Meeting my new little cousin. He is so cute

This picture looks so familiar except everyone has grown up

Chloe loves her new baby brother

Our new shirts

I got tickets to a sky box for the World's Toughest Rodeo from work. My friend Lichen and I took a friend of ours, niece, with us. We had a blast. Made me miss Montana though!

The view flying into Portland was beautiful you can see all 4 mountains but in this picture you can see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rayonier and Mt. Adams

Sue and I made the exectutive decison to not take many pictures while I was in Chicago. It was raining which means frizzy curls for both of us so we decided memories would work just fine. Who needs the proof!

Sue and I got drenched trying to see the Bean and all the Chicago sites. We ended up hanging out under the bean with about 40 other people until the rain let up enough to venture out.

The beginning of March I had a business trip to Janesville, WI so I flew in to Chicago over the weekend and spent an awesome couple of days with Sue and Jason before driving up to Wisconsin for my training. It was so fun to see where Sue has been living. Quite the change from life in Great Falls.

Lichen and I decided to bring our own microwave to the hotel so we could have hot cinnamon rolls for breakfast...one of my better ideas

For Lichen's Birthday we decided to head to the Coast. It also happened to be Seaside's 109th Birthday so we got free admission to the aquarium and museum. We had an awesome time.

I was missing Maui so Lichen and I wrapped in blankets and had Pizza by the beach.

Roomate Reunion 2009

Cheyenne, WY

Poor lonely little Turtle..I even take after Lisa with my turtle backpacks

Beth and Sue trying to show me how sad they were that I had to leave. 2 days is just not enough

This is a very typical Julie/Sue situation....I am laughing hysterically after a near mishap. Sue has just barely escaped being launched off the rock.

Prognosis: This is CLEARLY not a place for HOOLES....why do some things never change

Sue and I flew in the end of February to Denver, CO. Beth and her companion Carolyn picked us up and we had an awesome weekend touring Cheyenne, WY and the surrounding area. It was so fun to see where Beth has been living the past year.

Over Valentine's Day, Lichen and I headed to Chelan to watch the kids so my brothers could take their wives out for dinner. The boys let us use their spec house which worked out great. We had so much fun and the kids were awesome!
I am so lucky!!!

Some have complained...

...ahem...notified me (MJ and JL - you're not the only ones! :)...that they couldn't properly load our blog. Blah. So I've made a few changes. Please let me know if this helps!
-Author B.

What do YOU do??

What do you do when you're snowed in in Southeast Wyoming? Maybe some of the same things that we do? Eat, play Farkel, play Farkel again, lose at Farkel, win at Farkel, play a Farkel tie-breaker, play Scrabble, watch the snow blow by, eat, make cards, make picture frames, eat, study, read, watch the snow pile up, eat, play the piano, forge out into the blizzard to take pictures, deeply regret going outside but continue to get bombed into drifts and hit in the face with ice balls just for the benefit and dramatic effect of pictures, come in and drink hot cocoa, warm hands by the fire- oh wait, no fire- ask for a fire, find out the the stove vents are frozen shut and full of snow, turn up the heat in lieu of fire, eat, talk about the snow, make up competitions about snow drift height, call friends to discuss the blizzard, check to see how many roads are closed, take a mental inventory of the refrigerator and freezer, wonder if we'll have enough food, make cookies to freeze just incase, watch the lights flicker, exhale with relief when they stay on, see if there's anything new on www.bored.com....... the list goes on and on.
Anyway, maybe this weather instigated lockdown will cause me to catch up on my blogging. Sorry about the serious lack lately.
Here's some pictures and a video clip of the storm. What's that? The phone? ABC News just called- they offered me a job as a storm reporter. I explained that I'm quite content here, besides, one near death experience per winter is plenty for me...








Tim and Myrna are rad - we're stuck at their place, and they're taking great care of us. (Also, they wanted me to say something nice about them online.)