Harper's first Christmas

Baby Harper may only be six months old, but a girl knows how to open a present and to be happy when it's shoes! Yum.

Christmas 2013

Skype to the rescue...we felt a part of the action but still quite homesick this year. Had fun opening gifts! Only bummer was that mom's box got swiped from our porch on Christmas Eve. Still thankful for thoughtful families and plenty of phone calls to cheer us up. That and our friend, Buster, who made us smile. He's the pooch of co-residents who we dogsat for a couple days. Fun having him around for company! Plus Joel got to cheer him up too by giving him extra treats.

Santa's workshop

The elves had to hurry this year to get all the goods out to Michigan in time. Last year we were scampering around the basement saying we'd never put things like this off anymore...alas, there's always next year.

Ski season begins.

XC skiing in mt. Hood ain't the same as west Michigan. We figured that out the hard way after hiking through streams and climbing over tree trunks while carrying our skis. Better stick to the trail.  And next time we'll get a pass beforehand, and bring a camp stove with  hot chocolate!

Tea time!

With allie on her Burn Surgery rotation, weekends now consist of Thursday, the one day off. We've been meaning to stop in the tea room at Steven Smith Teamaker for months after discovering the company is out of PDX, but the hours are 9-5. Lucky us. The only ones there, plus we ran into Steven himself. Definitely a favorite spot. 

Don we now our gay apparel...

The Portland Gay Men's Chorus annualHoliday  concert -- no better way to kick off the holiday season. Wonderfully talented and equally hilarious. 

Grandma Rena cookies.

Ryan & Leah joined us for cocoa and cookies after our favorite pizza Place, Dove Vivi. Joel's thrifted purchase of his special cookie dough squirter was put into action early in the season this year. Although it's a shame the dough tastes so good plain or else even more would make it through into wonderful winter themed shapes...

The parents go to the Emerald City.

Took a little road trip up north to visit the Z's and show Mom & Dad around Sea/Tac.  Dad enjoyed the ferry the most, and mom, the gum wall.  Wouldn't be complete without waiting in line at the original Starbucks, watching fish fly, eating too many samples at Theo's, and trying some local brews.

         

Turkey time.

Resident spouses pose like their typical turkey selves...

Yard work.

Sunday afternoon filled with 4 loads of laundry for allie, and 4 minutes of "yard" work for Joel. With a baking frenzy to follow. 

Foodie Friends.

Their names are Eddie and Erin. And they know how to cook. And bake. 

Got the invite to their cookbook club where we stuffed ourselves with all sorts of carb-filled loveliness. We contributed the rustic rosemary apple tart, and the freshly baked crusted herb bread with goat cheese and homemade apple butter. 

Top faves were Erin's mushroom pot (hand) pie, and Eddie's butternut squash soup with apple brie grilled cheese...

Pinot Vino.

Wine tasting on the other end of the Wilamette valley this time. Residents, spouses, and a new attending. Five (?) wineries, a cheese tasting picnic party, and a fancy dinner to top it all off. 

Monday night saucing.

Are you ready for some football? Or apple parts all over your kitchen? Eddie and Erin were game. Joel was QB, and there were no fumbles. Score was Dozeman's: 3 pints, to Ysunza's: 4. 

Pumpkin surgery.

Resident hang out for the first time at our place. Ate chili, cornbread, fried chicken, and had spiked cider. Party ended around 8:30 when most people had to go home to let their dogs out. But then Allie got paged and had to go fix a sliced tendon from someone dropping a mason jar on their foot. Boo. 

FALLing in love with Portland.

Clockwise from top right: Joel's Moroccan stuffed acorn squash, mt. Hood from the bridge over to the other main hospital, a guy making gigantic bubbles in the park down our street, mushrooms galore at the PSU market. 

Fall projects: two, wood rack

Even when it was 90 degrees Joel was dreaming of the day when he could build a fire in the wood stove. In planning for that day, and subsequent wood burnings, he desired a huge pile of wood. And I desired a nice orderly way to store it. 

Fall projects: one, coat rack

Thrifted MI cross country ski coat rack, and spying on the rack builder.

Freeeedom!

Freedom never felt so fast. And bouncy. Joel scoured the sales near and far, then  bumped into a frequent lumberyard customer with a for sale sign on his longtime dream set of wheels. Short story short, he bought it and we celebrated by eating pho. Cheers to Joel's new truck!!

Chef Joel

Joel likes to make things. And allie likes to eat. We sure make a good pear. (Ha!)

Latest experiments: spiced pear jam, blackberry preserves, tomato soup and canned pears. Plus his ole goodie -- scratch made herb bread. 

Dozeman parents visit!

The long-awaited weekend is finally here, full of tours to the coast and around mt. hood, eating good food out and in, canning, eating blackberry pie, and sitting by our little wood stove. Fall has fallen!

SE comes to town

Enjoyed a lovely Labor Day weekend with Sarah in town. We window shopped downtown via bike, ate good cheese and lots of local fruit, drank local beverages, drove to Hood River and picked flowers, visited wineries, got awesome pizza, and ate ice cream three times. Oh, and Joel also made us his famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! Delicious. 

Resident retreat in Sun River

A doctor from our program graciously allowed any available residents to utilize his vacation home for the weekend. We enjoyed meals together, playing tether ball and horseshoes or taunting Katie with stuffed black bears (boys), and basking in the sun while chatting and eating pistachios (girls). Stopped at deschutes brewery in Bend before hitting the road back home. 

Berry Bandits

Joel drove us around up the hill from the hospital on a berry hunt. We came ready with two bowls and 3 bread bags. We filled them all, thanks to the mother of all jackpots -- a deserted grade school baseball field! And best of all, about half were red, which means there WILL be part two. 

Go Hops!

Hops is the name of the new Hillsboro single A summer league team. Joel got hooked up with 4 free tickets! Along for the ride (actually Joel's ride since Allie came late) are Ryan and Leah, Calvin friends who also live in Portland. 

Harper Rose

Very fortunate to have the opportunity to fly back to Chicago to meet my new sweet little niece. Highlights of the trip were taking over 300 photos, watching her yawn and celebrating her one week birthday! 

Deck/Patio: Part III

Done! Minutes before Joel and Mandy arrive for the weekend. Even strung up the ole wedding lights. Quite magical actually. Especially since this city is mosquitoless.

Patio: Part II

Joel builds planter boxes from scraped wood (free from his work!). Allie sweeps the sawdust.

Deck: Part I

First things first -- purchase the plants. Bought lots of herbs, tomatoes and some greens. And green beans. And a extra mint plant by accident.

4th of July!

Picnic and bike ride to the park -- at Mt. Tabor.

Let the games begin.

A week's worth of orientation meetings, 374 pages of highly important information, introductions to 65 new people, three fancy meals, two white coats, a list of passwords and door codes, a pager, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Unpacked!

It was Christmas on June 13th this year. At least for us. Opening all our wedding gifts and thrift store finds which accumulated throughout the last year and a half was exciting. And also about daunting. We have enough drinking vessels to host about 75 people. But only if we had popcorn -- we only have 6 forks.

Dad's arrival

Thankful for the driving expertise of Joel's dad, who graciously volunteered four days of his life to transport our earthly possessions. We sure appreciate it!

Move in day...

...Without most of our stuff! It arrives tomorrow with Joel's dad, our expert driver.

Road trip collage

Lovely routine stop overnight in Churchill, Montana -- the homestead of Leah and Todd Brouwer, plus the mini cows, horses and an awesome corn maze.

Three 12's

On the road again. This time no return trip after we hit Chicago.

Snap pea the trusty rusty VW dreambus is safely parked and tucked in her new (temporary?) home at a very friendly storage facility.

Penske truck packed not to the brim with all sorts of garage sale, thrift store, ikea, and travel stuff, plus wedding gifts. Oh and a 17' kayak.

Packed the car up with one box of fragile mystery kitchen items, our new pottery dishes, snacks, and my wilting plant.

Three days of driving the Oregon trail ahead. Farewell, pure Michigan.

Law school's out for the summa.

Right when I'm leaving town, Nichols arrives...if it weren't for all the amazing memories of summers past, I'd be super bummed.

Keep or toss?

Better start this puppy up again...

Joel sorted all his junk bins today and boy were there some treasures to be found. Among the top of the list were the 24 Chinese carved rocks as farewell gifts and THE original duck tape wallet co. prototype.