Portland Recap

So, by now you probably figured out that we went to Portland, Oregon for our anniversary trip.  We had been to Portland once before for an overnight visit during a road trip to California.  Since we both enjoyed our brief stay there, Noa thought it would be a fun city to explore some more.  Bonus: it was the 100th celebration of the Rose Festival (I just learned that Portland was the city of roses, so the festival is aptly named) and it was also Fleet Week, so there were several Navy ships in port.  I like to think that the city leaders knew it was a big weekend for us and decided to plan everything around that.

We stayed at the Hotel Monaco, which is an eclectic hotel chain in large cities, known for it's eclectic decor, luxurious ammenities, and kid and dog-friendly atmosphere.  I love it.  Although I didn't see as many dogs as I had hoped to, I still appreciated that it welcomed canine visitors so openly.

The decor is really fun.  It had a serious art deco feel to it.  I wish I could decorate like that in my own home but I'm afraid that if I did, it would look like a preschooler took over my house.

On our first morning in Portland, we enjoyed breakfast at a little diner-style restaurant and after Ruby's nap, we watched the Rose Festival parade, which was only a block from our hotel - in either direction.  It was actually a really fun, large parade with a bunch of bands (mostly high school bands), horses, international clubs and groups, and of course, floats sporting lots and lots of roses.  Some of my favorite parade participants included...

....the Alaska Airlines sled dogs and float....

...pretty much all the marching bands (what's a parade without a good ol'marching band, right?)...

....the horses....

....and especially the llamas.  Hilarious, I tell you.

Ruby seemed subdued and unimpressed by all the commotion around her.

The highlight for her seemed to be Noa's jacket.

After lunch and another nap for Ruby, we ventured out to the Washington Park area to visit the International Rose Test Garden and the Japanese Gardens.  The International Rose Test Garden is the oldest official, continuously operated public rose test garden in the country.  New rose hybrids are created here and put on display for voting and for show.

Some of the new rose hybrids had interesting, creative names.

We walked around and picked some of our favorites. 

This one was actually a mini-rose (it's hard to tell from this picture, but it was really cute!).

I was a big fan of the two-tone coloring on this one.  Plus, the red and yellow were really vibrant.  It was like the tips of the petals had been painted.

I like to think of this one as the tie-dyed rose.

This one was my absolute favorite!  I loved the shape and all the layers of petals.  It reminds me of a peony.

Ruby was so interested in it all that she completely wore herself out and fell asleep. Just in time for pictures....nice timing, kiddo.

Regardless of her sleep status, we had to take the obligatory self portrait with the iPhone.

Then we ventured on to the Japanese Gardens up the hill.  At first we were unimpressed with them, especially after having lived in Japan.  You had to pay to get in (the International Rose Test Garden was free) and then once in the Japanese gardens, they didn't seem all that great.  Then we walked further into it and found more of the classic, traditional plants and landscaping.  Soon, we found waterfalls, koi fish, pagoda statues, and bridges and we admitted that yes, this place was pretty cool.

Ruby had fun "exploring" (AKA touching) the leaves and branches.

Then again, I think just being with dad was better than any park or tree around.

We enjoyed some VooDoo Doughnuts on Sunday morning.

And lunch at McMenamins, where we sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

They served a beer called "Ruby" on draft.

I, of course, had to try it.  It was pretty good!

We walked around along the water, the Pearl district, and downtown.  Although the weekend flew by, I feel like we were able to fit in a lot of sightseeing, especially with a baby in tow.  Portland was a great place to celebrate our 11th anniversary and I hope we'll return soon to explore it some more.

  I'll leave you with a few more pics of our time in the "city of roses."

This dog was right next to us at the parade....I couldn't resist getting a picture of him.  He seemed to enjoy watching people walk on the sidewalk versus the parade commotion.

This is not a permanent display in downtown Portland.  They created it with individual potted flowers arranged in this design.  It was beautiful!

These water fountains are everywhere.

More roses!

Yep!  I'm that crazy mom out with her baby and trying to capture a smile on camera.

11 years means a huge piece of carrot cake to split with your loved one...yum!

Team Juloa!

11 Years and 11 Facts

This year will mark our 11th wedding anniversary.  Noa was gone (deployed) last year for the big 1-0, so this year we are marking the occasion by taking a little getaway.  The location is still a mystery as I type this, but by the time you read this post, we'll be at our destination.  We'll be taking Ruby with us, since she still isn't sleeping through the night and is still primarily breastfed.  I'm looking forward to whatever Noa has planned.  And, of course, I'll be blogging about it afterwards.

For this year's anniversary post, I thought it'd be fun to share some lesser known wedding facts - 11 facts for each year of marriage - from our big day.  First, let me set the stage:  It was 2001. I had only graduated college a few weeks prior to the wedding.  Noa took the first part of his medical boards one week before our wedding day.  It was pretty crazy, especially since I didn't see much of him in that month before the wedding since he was studying all. the. time.

 

 

I had only been to a couple of weddings before mine and most I couldn't even remember.  I mostly followed tradition and we had to keep the budget pretty modest since we didn't have a lot of money at the time, since I had yet to find a job and Noa was in school.
  

So, to keep costs down, I had my wedding dress made by a family friend (Wedding Fun Fact #1).  She made a bust of my torso using duct tape and a t-shirt!  The dress pattern was based off of a dress I had tried on at a bridal shop and the details were kept to a minimum.  I really wanted it simple. It ended up costing around $100, which worked for our simple budget.  I still have the dress, sealed in a box.  

WFF #2: Our rehearsal dinner had a luau theme and was held at Noa's parent's home, which was festively decorated.  It was a fun night, although I remember there being a lot of mosquitoes.  Someone, probably Noa's dad, said that keeping a dryer sheet near you keeps the bugs at bay.  So, almost everyone was sporting a dryer sheet that night.  We're a classy bunch.  What can I say? 

WFF #3: We had an uneven wedding party.  It was mostly made of family on the girls' side and Noa's friend's on the guy's side.  But, one of the groomsmen couldn't attend the wedding due to a military deployment.  Lame excuse, if you ask me.

Kidding, of course.

WFF #4: We couldn't afford a limo, so our friends fancied up a white minivan to take us to the reception.  Our "driver" even dressed up and provided a basket of food and bubbly in the back.  

WFF #5: There wasn't too much family drama in the planning...except when it came to the first dance.  My mom and I disagreed over the song that Noa and I had chosen as our first dance.  The live version of "Ice Cream"  by Sarah McLachlan was anything but traditional, but it was totally and completely us.  We loved every minute of dancing to that song and in the end, I think my mom agreed.

WFF #6: Speaking of music, we had a rockin' DJ.  He may have had a thick New England accent, often referring to my new husband as "No-er" a few times, but he picked some great tunes and kept people dancing.  I would definitely pick him if I had to do the wedding all over again.  One of the best wedding DJs I've heard to this day.

WFF #7: My hair was done by my dad's stylist.  Yes, my dad has a stylist.  At least he did back then.  He took me to get my hair done by her the morning of the wedding (isn't that sweet?).  When we got in the car after my hair was finished, the radio came on with the lyrics, "going to the chapel and we're gonna get mar-ar-ar-ied..."

I took that as a sign that it was meant to be.

WFF #8:  We didn't have digital photos.  This was right around the time that photography was just getting into digital formatting.  Since we had a family friend do our photos (another budget friendly decision), we don't have digital images, except those I've scanned.  One of these days, I'm going to take the negatives to get transferred to a disk.  Just last year we had our wedding VIDEO (a VHS tape) converted to a DVD.  These things make me feel old.

WFF #9: We have a section of our wedding video where another couple is dancing for the camera for an entire song.

WFF #10: Most affordable (and available) venue in the area with the largest dance floor: the local senior center.  Yep, you just read that right.  In fact, when I was checking it out with my mom, the seniors where having line dancing class on said dance floor.

You just can't make this stuff up, people.

And lastly, WFF #11: Alcohol was in short supply, but not on purpose.  Since we had to provide all the food and drinks for the reception venue, we decided to put bottles of wine out on the tables in lieu of a bar.  There was enough for each table to have two bottles of wine.  Unfortunately, the second set never made it out to the tables, so each table only ended up with one bottle of wine.  The wedding wine was enjoyed for many months afterwards!  

We've come a long way since then and I'm so thankful for the 11 years that we've been through this adventure together.  Here's to many, many more!

A Clean, Pristine Yard

We recently had our lawn de-thatched, which basically means that all the moss was taken out and new topsoil and grass seed was laid down.  We hired some people to do the work for us since we really didn't have the time to do all the work it entailed.  They also took out some dead bushes in the back yard and laid down mulch along the fence. Our yard is now green and lush.  I'd say it was money well spent, for sure!

However, our yard still needed lots of TLC with its overgrown bushes, weeds, and old leaves.  Having Noa's mom in town was just what we needed to help us with yard projects.  Carol is an avid gardener and our go-to person for all questions yard/garden related.  She and Noa spent almost a full day trimming most of our bushes and trees.  Carol truly has a an eye for this kind of thing.  For example, she started with the bushes located right out our back door.  The photo below shows just how much better the bushes look with a good trim.  The bush on the left shows what our bushes looked like pre-trimming.  The one on the right has just been trimmed by Carol.  Big difference, right?  The bush on the right actually has a shape now.  Plus, it gives us a better view of our lawn....a nice touch since it's so nice and green right now.

I wish I had more "before" pics, but I was taking care of Ruby when Noa and his mom started the work.  So, I'll try my best to describe what it used to look like before they turned it into awesome-land.

This tree used to be sad.  Sitting on the outer corner of our property, it had lots of overgrown pieces and scraggly growth inside the main part of the tree.  Underneath, there was a dying heather bush.  It was bad and sorely neglected.  Noa and his mom went to town on this thing and now that it's cleaned out, it looks really cute, inviting, and so much healthier!  We still need to put down some more mulch, but it's looking oh so much better.  I may eventually plant something under the tree, but for now I'm going to let the space "breath" for a little while.

All the front bushes were trimmed and Noa used the leaf blower to clear our all the old leaves.  It's so clean now!  I love the tree in the front.  Sometimes birds will build nests in there and now that it's pruned, we'll be able to see the nests from the windows.  Oh, and notice the beautiful lawn!  It's like a carpet!

So this picture makes me laugh. See those two trees?  Now, do you see the large bush to the left of them.  Uh, yeah....we thought we had THREE trees there.  All of them were so overgrown that we actually thought one of the bushes was a tree!  Now, that's when you know it's gotten bad.  The little bush in between them can also now grow a little since it isn't being covered by gigantic, overgrown trees/bushes. 

The bushes on the side were so big, we couldn't see the mailboxes behind them when we were walking across the front lawn.  Now, they are normal sized and not a scary sight for the neighbors.  Notice, too, the huge piles of branches that were piled by the fence.  On the to-do list: get more rocks to fill in under those side bushes.  They are looking a little bare on the bottom....how embarrassing.

One more view....the front of our house, showing the island that also has bushes that were cleaned up by the powerful duo.  Even with the bushes trimmed, we still feel like they offer us the privacy we like for being a corner lot.  Yeah!

Scenes from Grandma's Visit

I'm always kicking myself after we have guests visit for not taking enough photos.  I'm not a photographer at all, but I love to capture memories.  Several years ago, Noa bought me a really nice DSLR and I love it, but really need to learn how to use it manually and take good pictures to capture memories.  Not only that, but photos make perfect blog fodder.  Grandma's recent visit was no exception to my lacking in photographic skills (sometimes I look back at pictures and think, "why did I have them stand in front of a window?!  Why is the flash on?!  What was I doing?!).  Still, I was able to remember my camera at times and manage to capture a few sweet moments of Grandma and Ruby.

All dressed up before church:

Grandma gave Ruby a bath.  Looks like Ruby preferred the bath over the monkey towel afterwards.  She is not looking amused.

Eating out at The Loft in downtown Poulsbo. 

This picture was taken when Noa insisted the family go on a walk outside.  In the rain.  In 50 degree weather.  I insisted Ruby get bundled up.  We dug her snowsuit out of the closet.  

In May.

Nice.

Three Generations!

This picture makes me laugh because it looks like Carol (grandma) is really short.  She's not taller than Noa, but this photo kinda distorts her height. At least she and Ruby were showing great enthusiasm.

Lastly, here's a photo of just Noa and his mom.  This was after we were treated to a lovely dinner out in downtown Pouslbo.  Afterwards, we stopped for ice cream and then walked along the waterfront.  It doesn't get much better than this!  We're keeping our fingers crossed that Grandma can come and visit again soon!