La Nina strikes again

I've been waiting for La Nina to arrive all year. La Nina means lots of snow and lots of snow means lots of skiing. When we started making plans for Thanksgiving at the cabin in the Wallowas, La Nina was on our side, dumping snow on the mountains just in time for some cross-country skiing.

Here's the thing about La Nina. She can be a loose cannon. The "mountain snow" started falling in town on Tuesday and turned our plans upside down. Snow covered roads from The Dalles to La Grande and highs of only 7 or 8 degrees at the cabin. Yikes. So, as you can imagine, we all scrapped plans for Thanksgiving at the cabin and Craig and Bridget came up to Portland for a couple of days. We managed to do cabin things like puzzles and play chinese checkers and of-course, drink an obscene amount of wine and eat an obscene amount of turkey. And, we did non-cabin things like watch an obscene amount of college football. But cabin or not, we have a lot to be thankful for and that never changes.

The Vanilla Ice Project

Winter has descended upon Portland--it's been raining for oh, like ever, the snow is starting to pile up, it's cold and crisp in the morning and it's dark at 4:30pm. In a valiant effort to prevent the Hoybook household from falling in the depths of severe cases of SAD, we decided to buy ourselves some cable television. (Actually, to be completely honest, after we moved, we couldn't get our digital converter box to work anymore and football season was beckoning.) Anyway, part of the "welcome offer" was that we get all of the channels (yes, ALL of them) free for three months. Three glorious months.

Well, what I thought and predicted would happen, has. I watch junk. More specifically, reality television junk. I keep up with the Kardashians, know the details of the lives of crazy Beverly Hills housewives and am getting caught up on past seasons of America's Next Top Model. I know! Junk right? I should use cable for good, but instead, I use it for evil. If you haven't seen me for week, check the couch.

On Friday night, B and I were doing a little channel surfing and since we have ALL the channels, you can surf upon some interesting stuff. So, when we saw "The Vanilla Ice Project" pop up on the menu, we bit. "The Vanilla Ice Project" is a reality show on the DIY network which follows rapper Vanilla Ice around Palm Beach while he buys, fixes up and flips a 7,000 square foot mansion. He has this tattooed posse that follows him around to do some of the dirty work and on Friday's episode, he was wearing a shirt with a handgun on it followed by the words "Pimps & Ho's". It's mostly ridiculous.

Ok, ok, it's definitely all ridiculous, but here's my question: what came first?

Did they find Vanilla Ice and say, "Hey Vanilla Ice, what are you doing these days?" "Oh, you're flipping houses?" "We should make a show about that."

or

Did they have a show about flipping houses and sat around a table and thought, "Who would be the best host for this?" "Oh, yeah, Vanilla Ice!"

Talk amongst yourselves. I have to go, there's a Project Runway marathon on.

Oh Beaverton, you're so charming.

How can anyone resist you?

Autumn in the Gorge

Last week, the Friends of the Columbia Gorge led a guided hike for the REI staff. What a Gorge-ous day!

Portland Migration

This has been a year of old friends for me. Back in March, a good friend of mine from college, Luke, came for a visit to see his brother. We had great dinner and drinks with B. Then, in September, another good friend from college, Marissa, came to Portland on a work trip. We spent the day together, taking in the Portland sights. And finally, over the weekend, Sarah was in town from San Jose. She used to live in Portland and moved a couple of years ago. It was so great to see her again and to meet her bf, Brian. I love that with all three of these friends, we could pick up right where we left off, whether it was eight years ago (Luke), five years (Marissa) or just four (Sarah). I'm so lucky they call me when they are in town!

Time to turn the heat on