Latin Life in Portland

Our good friend Alyson's birthday was last Friday and we celebrated with a fantastic dinner at Clyde Common and then salsa dancing at the Mambo Lounge.

I had my camera along but silly me, didn't take a single photo.  Good thing the folks from PDXLatino.com were around snapping shots.  Check out their site here:  www.pdxlatino.com and scroll down just a little.  Apparently, Alyson's friend Meg and I are now part of Latin Life in Portland.  Alyson is not in the shot because she was shaking her moves on the dance floor.  That birthday girl can dance.

Ski, ski, work, work, work, rinse, repeat.

Normally around this time of year, it won't freaking stop raining.  The days are gray and the sun rarely shines.  Normally around this time of year, I can't wait for summer to finally arrive.  Well, April 2009 has been a little different.  We've already had that gorgeous 80 degree weekend that sneaks in somehow every spring and the sun has been out most of the time.  As you can see from the last post, the Hoybooks have been taking full advantage.

So, here's the thing:  Bryan can't seem to stop thinking about winter.  With all of this sun and warm weather around, he still has a serious case of snowis slidis feveralis, a.k.a. ski fever.  We've been trying to find a cure but apparently more skiing is the only remedy.  

His first dose of medication was last week's shenanigans in Central Oregon, a ski-tour, corn harvest on Broken Top.  So, when that didn't work, we spent today at Timberline.  The weather was questionable the whole day-- what's with the fog?-- but the snow was great.  On the way home, we were already scheming another day on the slopes for next Sunday.

Summer, come on down, but can you wait just one more week?  Bryan needs serious help.

A 3-hour Cruise

Summer invaded Portland for a couple of days.  It's back to clouds today, but the weekend was amazing and lucky me, I had Monday off, the best day.  B and I saddled up some kayaks and headed out to cruise the lakes of Sauvie Island.  The island was created when the Multnomah River empties up with the Columbia River just northwest of Portland and it has lakes.  A bunch of 'em. Who knew?

 The water was calm, the sun was hot and the day was so fun.  It was just plain summer-ish.  We took a 3-hour cruise around Sturgeon Lake and then headed over to the Lodge's for the first bar-be-que of the season.  Nothing rounds out a hot day on the water like a brat and a beer.  Even though it didn't stick around long, it reminded me of why Oregon is just so dang fantastic.  Yeah, yeah, it rains a lot, but when it doesn't, it is beautiful and when we get days like Monday, it makes all the rest totally worth it. 

B paddles up on a bald eagle.  We also spotted two blue herons, six other eagles, lots of sturgeon wrestling around in the shallow water and three other HUGE birds that we couldn't name.  

B paddles with Mt. St. Helens off to the right.  We saw the whole Cascade chain from the middle of the lake-- Mt. Rainier, St. Helens, Adams, Hood and Jefferson.

The Garden, Episode 1

I'm a firm believer that many good ideas can come out of Happy Hour. My good friends from work, Linda and Sarah, and I meet about once a month for Happy Hour. We catch Sarah up on REI Tualatin gossip, she catches us up on her beautiful daughter. And we laugh, boy do we laugh.

Last fall, we started hatching the idea about planting a community garden of sorts. (We even went as far as raising chickens, but the more we thought about it, we decided that idea might have been the result of a two margarita night.) Linda's parents live on about three acres on a hill that gets great sunlight, so she offered up the land for our "farm." Thus, the Garden was born.

Today, we took the first steps. B and I headed over to our plot to put in our raised beds. Now, I should say here that I have an extremely black thumb. I'm don't know how it happened-- I come from a long lineage of green thumbs, but apparently those genes just didn't get transferred. When it comes to house plants, if I'm in charge, they will pretty much die a slow, wet death. I'm guilty of overwatering. Major overwatering. I just love them too much. I'm hoping that growing plants outdoors will help my chances. So in an effort to further boost my chances, we built two 8' x 4' raised beds today.

The next step will be mulch, the compost, then planting. I have a long way to go, but I think we got off on the right foot today.

This year's crop will hopefully include:

lettuce

spinach

okra

strawberries

snow peas

onions

cucumbers

tomatoes

and any other veggies we decide we MUST have.

Back in the saddle

You can't keep us down for long.  Skiing with Geoff at Timberline on Friday.  

Spring skiing is the best.  Have I mentioned that before?  Well, it is.  The snow is slushy and forgiving, the runs are deserted and I only have to wear three shirts. 

Rest area ahead

Ok, it's time for me to admit it.  I'm tired.  B is tired.  WE are tired.  I looked at the calendar today and thought, "What!  It's April?  What happened to March?"  And then I remembered.  We left part of March in Hawaii and the rest in Utah.  

This weekend rolled around and the weather was beeeyoootiful.  So naturally, B and I had big plans for Sunday-- tennis, bike ride, hike. Big plans.  

Want to know what really happened?  We played tennis for about half an hour, grabbed some lunch and blanket, went to the park and proceeded to read the paper in the sun and toss around the frisbee.  Then we went home and I took a nap.  That's right, I admit it.  It was 78 degrees out, in April, in OREGON and I took a nap.  Got a problem with it?  No?  Good.  Because it was delightful.

The Olsons do Utah.

I'm not sure who should take credit for the idea (probably my dad), but the Olsons went on vacation together last week.  Apparently, when we all live in far corners of the country-- New York, Oregon and Florida-- my parents have a hard time getting their kids together.  So, instead of all converging on Wayne, America like usual, we went on vacation together.  Just like the old days.

We rented a house outside of Zion National Park in southern Utah for four days.  Four great days of dune jumping, hiking, sight seeing, cooking, game playing and general merriment.  Here, as usual, is your photographic feast.

Our trip to Utah by the numbers:

Miles driven: 2,346

National parks visited: 2

Miles hiked:  20

Elevation gained:  4722 ft.

Family members present: 8

Cameras present at any given time:  10

Olsons that Mom fooled with her annual April Fool's Day joke: 2

Winners of the Zion cook-off:  Bridget and Craig (Sorry Scott, you ran a tight race, but that gelato thing was to die for.)

Hours the power was out at the Rabbit Junction rental mansion: 1 

Vertical skiied at Snowbird:  21,472 ft.

Times I laughed on this trip: a million

Times I smiled: a billion

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park-- very cool and since we were there early in the morning, the deserted coral pink sand dunes.

Craig, Bryan and Scott doin' some dune jumpin'.
Craig and Bridget make good use of the bleachers at the dunes.  The bleachers are for...?  

"Goooooo dunes! Go dunes!"
B and me at the top of Observation Point, elev. 6,508 ft. with a view up Zion Canyon.
The family hiking down into the hoodoos at Bryce Canyon National Park.  This was my favorite side trip-- everywhere you looked was a photo waiting to happen.
Mom and Pops at Bryce Canyon.
Hoo-die hoo, I love those hoodoos.
The family poses at Bryce Point.
Mom setting out on the very sketchy trail up to Angel's Landing in Zion.   She is super hard core and keepin' it real.
Looking back down the ridge from the top of Angel's Landing.  Yep, that ridge is the trail folks. When I say "sketchy", oh boy, do I mean sketchy.  See the middle section down there?  Well, it's about 1,000 feet straight down on either side of you while you walk across a little rock bridge about five feet wide.  Yeah.  For reals.  
Brothers and sister at the top of Angel's Landing.
B and me on the Emerald Pools trail deep in the Zion Canyon.
Getting ready for another run down the powdery slopes of Snowbird, Utah.  Of-course we had to stop and ski on the way home.  

B kicking up some spray.

This pretty much sums up what I thought of the entire trip.  Wooo!