Lynn and I made it to MN this year. We were able to suprise my parents by just showing up at their doorstep. You may think... that's gutsy, but we had it planned right down to the smallest details. Ok, I had a few people inside that were helping me, namely Kevin and Erin. They were able to organize things and intercept gift packages before they got to the post office.

We had spent a few days in Carol Stream, IL, meeting up with Lynn's side of the family and having a few Christmas gift exchanges. It was nice to see the entire family.

Dare I say, the midwest is cold? It was barely above zero in Carol Stream and here in Lanesboro its about 14 below zero this morning. Yikes, its cold! There's lots of snow here, but still less than what is now in Portland. Hopefully all is melting quietly in PDX.

Anyways, here's hoping that you and yours are enjoying this Christmas holiday. Cheers!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Matthew, William, Lynn and I hosted a Thanksgiving party yesterday, inviting over to our home friends of ours. We shared turkey with two other couples, Ian and Janel and Melvin and Allen. Fun was had by all. We enjoyed a quartet of bottles of wine, as well as a cornucopia of food. Ian and Janel brought a savory ham, while Allen brought several dessert and a tasty stuffing. Melvin followed instructions to the letter, bringing home made bread and home made cranberry sauce. I can honestly say its the first Thanksgiving that I've ever been too that was devoid of jellied cranberry sauce. Thanks all!

Hope everyone reading this had a great Thanksgiving!

Yeah, ok, so I didn't update at all during August. Lets see here... we've had a few visitors. Ruth Pedrick and Fran Kulesza headed out to the coast for a few days, helping us with the kids and taking a tour of the Astoria area. Lynn, the boys, and I have been busy ourselves. Two weeks ago, we went hiking around the Silver Falls loop. Its about 8 miles total. Not a lot amount of elevation, but still a nice hike. William did it all himself. What a trooper. We had to feed him some M&M's and trail mix to get him going again. Towards the end, he started running ahead on the trail. Its a wonder what Chocolate can do to a little boy. Last week, we went camping at Cape Lookout. It was a fine time, besides the mosquitos and the micro climate of fog & clouds surrounding the cape. We had a great time exploring Tilliamook and the immediate area. William started preschool last week. I (Jason) accompianted him on his first half-day of school. I think he's going to have a good time with it. Some kids seemed a bit nervous leaving their parents... William was like "See you later!". Who would have guessed? :-)

This weekend Lynn, the boys and I headed down to Mt Angel. Its a town started by a bunch of German immigrants, so yearly they throw a "Oktoberfest" celebration. We hit up mass in their beautiful church, then afterwards, we ate cinnamon rolls and had beer sausage for breakfast. Had German cheese fondue and beer for lunch. We were home by 2 :-)

Pics to follow!

Hillsboro Parks and Rec is holding a open track & field event every Wednesday night for 6 weeks in the summer. They have open events for all age groups. Lynn thought it would be fun, so we headed on over. Lynn had to take off early for work, so it was just the boys and I. William did the softball throw, the long jump, hurdles, and the 50 yard dash. He did well in the Softball throw but had some slight trouble with the long jump. It was more like a long run through the sand instead of jump. After that we hit up his true calling... running for short distances. He lined up for the 50-yard dash for 3 year olds, got ready and....



He won second place! Very exciting. I think he enjoyed that much more. Next time we'll put him in the 3yr old's 100 & 200 yard dash. Let me know if the above video didn't work. I'm trying out something new. Put the cursor over the left corner and a play button should appear.

Enjoy!

Yeah! The Picture galler is finally fixed. I had to re-install it on top of the old, broken one. It took some time to work out the bad stuff out of the database, but all worked out ok. I have to give it to the open source "Gallery2" software. All worked like a charm.

A beautiful weekend in Hillsboro, Oregon. ~70, dry, and sunny the whole weekend. L,W,M & I spent the majority of the weekend in downtown Portland. We rode the MAX into downtown Portland, then we hit up the farmers market. After purchasing some fresh cherries, we lunched on a slice of "Hot Lips" pizza, a Gyro wrap, and a Falafal sandwich. Overall, not too bad. Afterwards, we heeaded down to the "Sand in the City" event, a showing of sand sculptures in pioneer square. Some nice sculptures, you'll have to check out the pictures in the photo gallery section.

After that, we rode the MAX back home again and made homemade pizzas... not too bad if I do say so myself. A bit of fresh basil and wilted spinich does a pizza good.

Today we cleaned up our old couch and loveseat for sale on craigslist. Jason did an excellent job of vacuuming, was even able to get most of the dried milk out. We'll put it up in the next few days, so if you're in the PDX area and want a new couch, I'll put up a link.

Lynn's friends Mike & Laura were in town tonight on their final night of their Oregon trip. We headed down to Papa Hayden, an excellent dessert restaurant. Each couple split a entree and then ordered a full desert. It was excellent.

Anyways, hope you all had a great weekend and I wish you all well in the upcoming week.