Saturday, April 25, 2020

Century Ride


Since Stay Home orders were issued 5 weeks ago, all the recreation lands have also been closed, which created a real dilemma for Jesse---who typically gets regular exercise from mountain biking.


The solution (for personal sanity) has been waking up very early and road riding before work.


A phone camera does not do the subtle colors of dawn justice.


After riding up to Snowden a few times, Jesse thought he should set a goal of doing a 100 mile loop.


The forecast dictated the decision and so yesterday at 8 am, Jesse gave us a squeeze and set out on his first Century ride.


The loop took him from our house, out to Trout Lake and next to Glenwood.


The kids and I drove out to resupply his water bottles, snacks, and bring lunch at about the half way mark.


It was a treat for all of us to get out of the house!


After a short visit, it was back to the road.  


We waved good bye and headed toward Klickitat.


Now that we were ahead, we left Jesse little road-side notes of encouragement using powdered diatomaceous earth (because that's what I had!).

There's a long winding climb out of the river gorge and up to the plateau.  It was beautiful.


It's a remote area and Jesse said our messages were quite meaningful.


In a few days the balsam root and lupine will be just stunning out there.


This was the message we left at the peak of that massive climb out of the river canyon.  From there it was down to Klickitat and then Lyle.


Home stretch!  Jonah applying our 2nd-to-last message.

He made it!


100 Miles!
Way to go Jesse!  We are so proud of you!

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Limerick


There once was a cat named Snowflake
who would knead you wide awake.
She was a friend to chickens
and loved tree-climbing missions,
and thought she was a bird by mistake.

Jonah and I wrote this Limerick during home school this morning.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Monday, January 27, 2020

Weekend Adventures


Ski, bike, ski, bike, ski, bike, ski....
We are making the most of what ever weather conditions mother nature delivers.



Jonah at the Lumberyard (wearing blue shirt with red sleeves)



Jesse and Jonah ski jumping


Besides skiing and biking, Jonah played his violin at the Baroque Festival yesterday.  
He performed Minuet 1 by Bach.  I wanted to share the video with you, but the file was too large to upload to the blog, so try the link below, instead.


We also went to see the Exquisite Creatures exhibit at OMSI.  Sooooo Cool!




It's been nice to squeak in visits with Nanna, The Gioias, and Grandpa too.




We have had a busy January!  More pictures from the Europe trip to follow soon.
xoxo

Monday, December 23, 2019

Vienna

Traveling demands a certain amount of flexibility, because no matter how prepared you are, unexpected challenges will arise.  I would consider Jesse and I seasoned travelers, but neither of us were anticipating drama to start in our home country. At airport check-in we were informed that Jesse's passport, while valid, needed to be valid for three months beyond our return date....and mid-March was just about a week shy of this requirement.  Yeah.  So after a quick family huddle, we decided that Jesse would go to Seattle to get a new passport and that I would proceed on with the boys as planned.  The first flight was just the three of us.  In San Francisco we met up with Sally (GranMama) and she helped me get everyone to Vienna safely.  
It was a challenge to get reunited with Jesse.  He got his passport without problem.  Then his flight got delayed in Newark.  They boarded and sat on the plane for 5.5 hours waiting for the snow to stop.  In Frankfurt they rebooked him on the next flight to Vienna.  Sally and the kids and I had already left Vienna at this point and were taking the train to Salzburg.  The four of us got the rental car and drove to Berchestgarten arriving in the evening.  Jesse hopped on a train to Salzburg directly from the Vienna airport.  Unfortunately, part-way through the trip the train engine had problems... They had to get pushed back to the station and get on a different train which doubled the overall trip time.
Finally Jesse arrived in Salzburg and took a cab to the house in Berchestgarten.  We are so happy to be reunited!
Here are a few photos from traveling, our walk around Vienna, and taking trains.
PDX
Lufthansa
Austrian Air
Jonah sleeping, Ezra not sleeping.
Good morning Vienna!
Super cool shoe store
Over the Danube
Beautiful sunny day
We took the U-bahn (subway), S-bahn (train), and Westbahn (train)
Going to Salzburg!
Our train had a special car just for kids... Ezra enjoyed the extra space to climb.
Made it!
The foothills are dusted with snow.  
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