My 35th Birthday!

Last Thursday was my 35th birthday and I thought it would be fun to go downtown and have lunch at Todai in Pioneer Place.

Here I am practicing my chopstick skills!

This is the REAL reason why I love Todai. Don't get me wrong, the other food is great, but these tiny desserts are a real treat. They even had green tea icecream!

I was also served a mini birthay cake which I shared with everyone. It was just the right size considering how full we were already.

Me and my family on my birthday.

Crazy girls trying to immitate the sea creatures in the window display.

On Friday I had an 80's themed party. My pictures are posted on my Paper Caper's blog if you are interested. Here is the direct link to the 80's party post.

Our lunch on the Willamette

Last year for my birthday, Dan gave me a certificate for a cruise on the Portland Spirit. I lost the certificate and just recently found it back in January. It's a good thing I found it when I did, because it expired in February! I made reservations for April 19, thinking that we would have better weather if I bumped it up a few more months...

While we didn't have the sunny weather I was hoping for, it was much better than the rain mixed with snow the folks at weather.com were predicting. The morning was cold, but the sun was out (and by "sun was out," I mean occasionally it would peek out from the clouds), so we were content with that!!!

After boarding, we were shown to our table and given some warm tea.

Our lunch was yummy. I had the grilled herb chicken and Dan had the beef shoulder entree.

On the ride back, we stepped outside for some up-close sight seeing.Here we are on the bow of the boat, just about to pass under the Marquam Bridge (my least favorite to travel over!) with the Hawthorne Bridge in the distance.

Here's the famous Portland landmark. I remember when it used to say "White Stag" instead of "Made in Oregon."

Here's a very ominous picture of the Steel Bridge. We passed under most of the bridges south of the Steel bridge. Fun Fact of the Day: Apparently the Steel Bridge is a railroad bridge (lower deck) owned by a railroad in Oklahoma and in order for it to lift up and allow ships to pass under it, they need to get special permission from Oklahoma and therefore the Spirit of Portland generally doesn't go under it.

Here is one of the recognizable towers you see on the Burnside bridge.


The Old Spaghetti Factory. Lots of fun memories here. I remember the first time I went to eat here was with the high school youth group (for Jason Birman's birthday I think!) Anyway, I'd pick this location over the Clackamas location in a heartbeat...even if it takes twice as long to get to! Dan and I always order the salad with creamy pesto dressing and the spaghetti, half meat sauce and half mazithra cheese with browned butter....so, so good and of course spumoni ice cream to finish it all off! Mmmmmm!


Of all the big fancy newer homes along the water, I think I'd rather live in this old Spanish-style estate... you know, if money were no object. Nice hu? Just a wee little thing, right!!!

On the return trip, we got to ride with the Captain and watch him "park" the boat. He has a separate control out on the deck that allows him to steer the boat up close to the sea wall. Doesn't he look just like a captain should?

After disembarking from the boat, Dan and I walked down to the marina and took some pictures of the dragon boats. He is going to be designing t-shirts for the Leatherman Tool Group's dragon boat team and needed to get some visuals.

Right after I took this shot it started to rain and...snow!!! So we ran up to Riverplace and then back to our car.

Are you kidding me? These photos were taken about 7:15 last night after dinner! I had to run out to the pump house and turn the pump back on so the pipes to the pool don't freeze!!!

The poor Rhododendron thought it was spring and was trying to bloom!!!

Fortunately, I hadn't planted these Dahlias yet and just brought them inside the house to warn up in their little pots. (See procrastinating can be a good thing!) This morning when I woke up there was still snow on the ground! Weird, weird, weird!!!

Polar Bears and Penguins...oh, my!

Last Thursday I took Natalie to see Princesses on Ice, so this week it was Zander's turn to do something fun (and the other kids got to come along too!). I love taking the kids to OMSI and when I heard they were featuring an Arctic exhibit with polar bears and penguins, I knew Zander would love it!
Although there is an element of this photos that freaks me out (note actual stuffed polar bear)...I think Zander's expression is pretty funny!
Natalie compares the different bear skulls, black bear, polar bear and grizzly bear. The polar bear was the biggest by a long shot.

Here the kids got to look through microscopes.

This was a fun game where you try to touch the fish that light up in the water in an effort to "feed" the baby penguin. It was hard to pull them away from this game.

Follow the penguin tracks and walk like a penguin. What you can't see from this picture is Zander flapping his "wings" like penguins do...it was so funny cause I turned around and there on the monitor was a video of the penguins doing just was Zander was.

Zander got to try on a penguin suit...

...and slide down the snowy hill on his belly, just like a penguin.

Zander and Hayden were listening to the different sounds penguins make.

Penguin Paradise!

After lots of fun and discovery at the Arctic exhibit, we ventured up stairs to the kids area for more fun!


Looking at nature through a magnifying glass. Natalie and Zander dressed up like chipmunks and gathered acorns inside an old tree.


Here's Natalie with her new eagle friend.

One of our kids' favorite areas is the sand pit. They have the best sand at OMSI.

The water table is always good for some wet fun. Despite wearing rain boots and smocks the kids always seem to get their clothes wet...oh, well...it's all good "clean" fun! (sorry, I couldn't resist...please refrain from throwing tomatoes!)

Women of Faith Weekend

This past Friday, after my doctor's appointment my friends (Anne, Debbie and Jenny) and I checked in to a hotel downtown Portland for the Women of Faith Conference. This was my 3rd or 4th time to the conference, Anne had been a few times as well, but it was Debbie and Jenny's first time.

Before we left for the conference, we went out for tacos/burritos at Chapotle. Once we were done we got on MAX and experienced a ride like no other...wall to wall women! It was such a chatty commute. There were really only a few men on the train and you could feel their anxiety level increase at each stop as more and more women boarded.



Once we got in to the Rose Garden we scrambled around to find our seats. When Anne ordered the tickets the only remaining seats were way up in the nose bleed seats on the 300 level. For those of you who have never experienced the 300 level...it feels pretty much like you are going to fall off the side of a mountain. You can barely make out who's on the platform...and that's when your watching on the large monitors all around...forget trying to see them with your naked eyes! It wasn't long before Jenny started to feel sick. Anne went and talked with an usher about getting seats on a lower level. All four of us waited in line to find out we had to wait in another line to buy the tickets. For $20 more we landed ourselves in the best seats in the house!!!

We just upgraded and were now seated the floor level in the 5th row!!! Thanks Jenny! It was so great to be so close to all the speakers and performers. We laughed and cried our way through some amazing stories.

Here is a shot of what it looks like when 18,000 women all come together for worship. It was awesome! After the first night we all went back to the hotel to eat chocolate and watch tv. Since there was nothing really good on, we just crashed...sorry Chris, no pillow fight!

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and went back to the Women of Faith conference.

Starbucks anyone? I don't think the garbages look like this before a Blazer game!!

The speakers were all so great. I really enjoyed myself so much more this time than before and could really relate a lot to the motherhood humor.







Highlights for me...
Anita Renfroe was soooo funny. You can see some of her comedy on YouTube. Her total momsense can be seen here. It has been going around in emails and blogs for a few months so you may have already seen it. I was so excited to learn that we would be seeing here as part of the conference. She also had a hilarious rendition of Faith Hill's song "Breathe" called "Don't Breathe" about her husband's morning breath. She created a video that went along while she sang that was hysterical...All the speakers were funny and had great story telling abilities, but Anita was my favorite.


And the winner for most likely to make a room full of women cry goes to Sandi Patty. While she was singing, like only Sandi Patty can, a young Down's Syndrome girl was signing with her. As the story goes Lisa was learning to sign along with Sandi Patty's CDs and she told her mom that she wanted to sign with her one day on stage. Well, Lisa's mom just kind of dismissed the idea, but once while in the audience at Sandi Patty's concerts, Sandi saw her and asked her to come on stage and she now tours with her once a month. Lisa's enthusiasm was contagious and brought tears to everyone in the Rose Quarter whenever she was on stage.