The girl's back in town

Jess came back for a long weekend and it was so fun! We had her all to ourselves (her long-term relationship ended not long before). We took her to a sushi restaurant in Chinatown were it was delivered by train!

On Saturday we were in a fundraising walk for CF, with many of our Portland friends -- and Travis came up from Central Oregon. Afterwards, we had a barbecue at our house.

Brad and Brian

Toby and Brian play frisbee

At the tea house in Montavilla with TJ and Jess

Blossom time

These kids were cosplaying.

We were lucky to get in a walk along the downtown waterfront just before the cherry blossom time ended. It was so beautiful. There were SO many people walking around and taking photos. The people-watching was AWESOME. 

Out with Mary

Trying to spend plenty of time with my gal, Mar. I took her to the downtown loft of two professional musicians for a fundraiser because I knew she'd love the space and interior design. 

She lost her brother-in-law to a sudden death and shortly after I tried to share something special by taking her walking at a patch of forest alive with camas flowers. 

It was glorious. 

A man for the job

We've had a great time in recent months, availing ourselves of our very own kick-ass landscape pro. 
Travis has been coming up on frequent weekends, building us a rain garden swale, hardscape utility area and a planter bed. 

It's been awesome and if he'll keep coming, we'll keep using them.

Spring skiing

In early May B went down to Ashland to ski with Jess. For the first time since she enrolled SOU the mountain there had a nice coat of snow. 
The skiing, I'm told, was awesome.

big blue herons

Early spring and Bug and I headed to the shores of the Willamette River to see the great blue herons build their nests for the season. It was impressive.

Love one stitch at a time

This was a big year in my extended family. My best friend's mother turned 90. In honor of that, she wanted to make a her mother a quilt. A couple of small challenges with that: she didn't quilt. Or sew. Or do handcrafts of any kind. 

But she wanted to do all the work herself. She picked out the fabric and made the design (with my mentoring guidance but little actual work). She asked my cousin Lori, an extremely talented artist, to paint a centerpiece for the quilt. And she worked on it on weekends and late into the night. And it was finished, right on time. 
And it was spectacular.

Back at the beach

We opened up Hill Street in March this year. The new window did well, no leaks or moisture. We spent a lot of hours de-winterizing the place and starting pressure washing the siding. 

We treated ourselves to a short hike after one busy weekend and on another we had a lovely sunset picnic at the beach. It makes all the work worth it.

Girls nights in

Winter and spring are the time for the rounds of girlfriends' birthdays. For my birthday we all went for a great dinner at Country Cat, then back to the house for play games and lots of chatter.

And we celebrated two more birthdays with a catered dinner by Mary, at her sisters' house.

Spring peeps

Yes, this spring we were back at it again. Baby chicks in the bathtub and a remodeling of our old dog house. Three chicks this time around, another Buff Orpington (Hope) and two Wyandottes (Faith and Charity). 

The Three Sisters.