April Album II: Girls’ Weekend

On my birthday this year, my dear esposo took the kids down to Oklahoma to celebrate my father-in-law’s retirement while I hosted our second girls’ weekend here in Portland.  I had some initial mixed emotions, since my birthday was spent without my crew – plus I was missing out on a big celebration for my husband’s dad.  But it was a wonderful way to enjoy my birthday –  hanging out and spending some much needed time with my mom and sisters sans kiddos.  My sister Gina couldn’t make it, sadly – she was on bedrest at the hospital awaiting “cuatro” – their fourth child, who was due to arrive in a few weeks (spoiler alert: Baby Anthony Thomas arrived on Mother’s Day and wow, is he a cutie!  Mommy and baby are both doing well…).  My mom arrived a couple of days early, so she could visit with the kiddos before their trip. 

Mom and I also celebrated my birthday before Rita and Meg arrived – a day of shopping and organizing.  I took her to Mother’s Bistro downtown, which was lovely.  Unfortunately, we don’t get to spend quality time like this very often.

  

Girls weekend began with the arrival of Rita and Meghan!  The next morning we started off with some yoga and my famous “smoovy”.

We spent that morning on the historic Columbia River highway, catching a glimpse and a kiss of mist from the beautiful falls there:  Latourell, Shepard’s Dell, and of course the crown jewel, Multnomah Falls.  The weather was cool but beautiful and slightly damp – a perfectly lovely Oregon day.

   

Rita, Mom, and I stood in front of the scenic Columbia River, at the Crown Point Vista House.

  

   

   

        

The area is so incredibly scenic; it just speaks for itself.  We left a spot for Gina in the bottom right photo, since Mom has been known for her fancy and artful “photoshopping” of portraits. We really missed Gina.

    

After all that hiking, we needed some pedicures.

The next day, I took them to two Portland markets: the Portland Farmers Market at PSU and the Saturday Market (which runs on Sunday, too, just to be confusing).  There were many colorful artists and musicians to take in.  I am a sucker for live music, especially when the musicians are barefoot or play washboards.  It’s true. 

We had lunch at the Farmer’s Market from a booth that was making its own corn tortillas.  Oh yum.

The Saturday Market was pretty packed also.  It was a good excuse for me to go, since I hadn’t seen the new (not-so-new anymore) fountain or permanent structure for the market booths.

I handpicked this spot to make sure that the tie-dye made it into the photo.

Girls’ weekend is usually about creativity, so I busted out my sewing machine for the first time since the day before Leo was born.  I was pretty happy to be sewing again.  I have projects galore, and my new rule is: no new fabric until I get some projects finished!  Then my lovely sister-in-law gifted me with some great fabric scraps (which doesn’t count at all).  Yay.

Rita and Meg got creative in the kitchen for some salmon, polenta cakes, salad and a delicious strawberry rhubarb pie to celebrate my birthday.

    

The next day we went out to brunch on my birthday before Rita had to catch her plane (boo hoo!), and thus began my process of winding down after such a fun weekend.  I always have a hard time saying good-bye to my mom and sisters.  This kind of weekend is too scarce (my sisters and I have each been pregnant since the last one!).  I guess with such young families, we’re lucky to sneak in some time to ourselves, but here’s to many more girls’ weekends and with fewer intervals between them. 

 

Luckily, my crew came home soon after everyone left, so I didn’t have too much time to sit on my pity pot.  Happy 35 to me. 

April Album I: Easter events

I’m a little behind on the bloggy-blog, so here’s a quick recap of our Easter. 

First of all, hooray for cascarones!  A fun rainy-day activity improves fine motor skills and results in the most beautiful eggs ever.  And it’s a total reuse and compost art!  A bonus that I’m sure my ancestors clearly took into account every year.  It’s lovely and nostalgic.  I’m sent right back to childhood in one pastel confetti-filled instant.  Here are my helpers, demonstrating all the shades that result from mixing food coloring with both brown and white eggs.  Fantastic.

     

And now the eggs are dry, so we fill the cascarones.  This was messier than the dye, but just as colorful.

       

We also participated in our neighborhood’s annual egg hunt for the first time ever.  The gorgeous weekend weather made this an easy decision.  Dean was waiting patiently until the signal was given to go hunt the eggs!

     

On Easter Sunday, the kids peeked into their egg-filled baskets for some goodies: tattoos and stamps, stickers and some candy.  Pretzels for Leo.

     

And now the hunt for cascarones begins!  Dean knew what to do.

   

Fiona figured it out pretty quickly.  She had a favorite head for sprinkling confetti.  Leo tried to take shelter in the fort, but his sister quickly tracked him down.

   

Mi esposo reintroduced himself to the grill.  Ah, spring finally is here!

Leo loves the outdoors.  We look forward to many more beautiful days like this. 

Happy Easter!

 

my smoovy

So I have a new breakfast habit, which Fiona refers to as my "smoovy".  It started with my raiding our freezer downstairs and discovering that we still had last summer's strawberries to gobble through before June comes and we go picking again (wearing fleece, as with most years, but I digress...). 

I also started seeing a naturopath to figure out my headaches, my low energy, my sinus issues, my "funk" basically.  She asked about my diet, which sometimes includes a smoovy in the morning - of yogurt, fruit, and flax seeds.  She gave me a few more ingredients to toss into the blender: a handful of greens for my lack of morning energy; protein powder for that little extra boost; oils, such as coconut oil, flax oil, or just some avocado to combat my dehydration (which often leads to headaches); and my favorite ingredient: maca.  What the heck is maca? According to the packaging of the dried powdery stuff, maca is a plant native to the Andes that is claimed to have been used by Incan warriors for stamina and *wink wink* stamina.  So it is my new secret ingredient, much discussed and giggled over during our Girls Weekend a few weeks ago, when I was still experimenting with my new recipe.  I think everyone quietly liked the added oomph - although, and forgive me for sounding so Portland, but I only wish I could get it locally grown. 

And the verdict?  The oils are definitely making a dent in my overall dry constitution.  The protein and maca are contributing to lower morning fatigue, but generally fatigue still ebbs and flows - I bet having three small children has something to do with that.  It is muddy and sometimes the color of moss.  But I've got the whole family in love with my smoovy (well, the kids don't get maca).  Overall, mmm... my smoovy is a hit!

Not in Portland anymore

This April, I got on an airplane with a book and full intentions to read it – and (yes!) even to fall asleep mid-flight.  I was all by myself, heading to Los Angeles for a conference. 

I tried to spend most of my time outside of the convention center so that I could soak in the glorious weather before returning back to um… Portland, which is doing what Portland does in April.  Which is not transitioning to springtime yet.  And it’s already (did I mention this?) April.  Besides, I hadn’t been to LA since the early 1990s, way before I ventured into this urban design thing.  So, it was definitely worth a look-see.  And?  Thank goodness I left the convention center because that is one freakishly oppressive complex.  The building above is Frank Gehry’s (who else could that be?) Walt Disney Concert Hall.  I got to sneak in during a performance and the acoustics were actually pretty great.

My eyes are trained to take in all the flora everywhere, and this place is so different than my rainforest back home.  Look at the crazy pine street trees!  I love the palms and the agaves. 

    

    

I was also in town for CicLAvia, taken from Bogota’s Ciclovias, where miles of streets are closed off to automobile traffic to allow for bikes and pedestrians to take over the public realm.  Portland does a similar event throughout its neighborhoods, called Sunday Parkways, which we have participated as a family in some way or another.  Portland specifically uses its events to showcase their bike boulevards and to connect its parks, which feature roller skating to yoga to hula hoops to you-name-it, it’s Portland. 

But, back to LA.  This was an amazing event to see, because, first of all, it was held in the heart of downtown, so the experience was uniquely urban – cyclists storming the downtown by force, flanked with high-rise towers.  Secondly, LA can draw many thousands of people to its downtown, and this event seemed to do that.  It was intense.  I love how the people of the city really tested its streets with their bikes, including the trees, the poles, the rails, and anything they could lock their bikes up to when the need to eat or drink arose.  And it did, because it was warm.

     

    

   

The days were so sun-filled that I found myself exploring, and I wound up visiting several parks.  And – I’m not judging, but I do notice there are lots of signs telling me what not to do.  And all the parks are gated.  What is that all about?  Anyway, the multitude of signs were kind of funny to me, so I couldn’t help myself…

    

   

One of the most interesting tours I went on as part of the conference was a mobile workshop that discussed LA’s adaptive reuse policy, which set in motion a kind of downtown renaissance and preserved many old financial buildings that had sat vacant for 40 plus years.  Pretty great to be able to peek inside some of those units. 

These photos were taken from a speculative office building constructed but never occupied in the 1980s.  Recently it was adapted for owner-occupied condo housing.  It was an anomaly to the other pre-World War II adaptive reuse buildings, but interesting nonetheless.  And the views were spectacular.

Of course, no one brought a swim suit for the tour…

This is a glimpse of the convention center area, with the Ritz-Carlton in the background and the Harbor freeway.

If you squint, you can see the Hollywood sign…

LA has some super crazy tall buildings.  I think that one in the foreground was given additional height by the city for not demolishing the historic library to the left of it.  It’s 73 stories and the tallest on the west coast.

This entire trip was a nice autonomous getaway, a great break from the Portland weather, and a professionally stimulating opportunity.  I spoke at the conference on a panel, and I met several other professionals who share a similar job description – which hadn’t happened until this trip.  I’m so grateful and humbled by mi esposo, who supported and encouraged me to go.  And, he survived too!  He’s a rockstar.  And now I’m back in Portland – where despite the lack of sunshine, it’s good to be home.