Trisha sees Oregon (a little)

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Video of Gorge trip

Up to the normal stuff...

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Well, we are up to our normal lives...playing, hanging out and making music.

Friendly house is about to be finished for the summer so I think that we will replace Thursday morning painting and pretending time with hiking on some trails....the berries are about to start filling all the bushes along the trails!

Roma added this video about our camping at Mt. Hebo a little later, so if you didn't see it yet just click here... video it should start right away. (If you are a grandparent and want to save it you should right click and choose 'save tartet as')

PS. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the suspenders

Gizmo June 6, 1994- May 10, 2006

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Gizmo passed away last week of cancer.

We got Gizmo as a puppy right after our family returned from Germany for the first time in 1994. He was just a little fuzzy hairball, always happy and playful. At first he lived in the laundry room--but quite soon he graduated taking charge of the whole house. He loved his independence and freedom.

Gizmo was always with us when we traveled—to Colorado, to Washington DC; he went many times to Ruidoso with Mama and Daddy; when he couldn’t come with us he preferred to keep after the home and family or friends would come to check on him everyday.

Gizmo was a great protector and a loving dog. He kept secrets better than anyone and always (well, most of the time) let you pet your stresses out on his back. Everyone who knew him loved him and we will all miss him very much.

If you have any Gizmo memories please leave them in the comments section!

Camping at Mt. Hebo

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The men (Roma and Peter) escaped from work early on Friday so we could get to the campground early and set up to have a relaxing evening in the forest. Unfortunately (and a little fortunately for the view's sake) we took the curviest route--that happened to extend our drive by about an hour. Luckily we are early in the camping season and there were plenty of camping spots still available at the Hebo Lake campground--although the women's stomachs hardly survived in the passenger seats.

The campground is almost paradise—beautiful, quiet, clean—the little lake is picture perfect; only lacking the swimming area (that is why it is only almost paradise) There is a wonderful trail called the Pioneer-Indian trail; it is about 8 miles long and you climb around 2000 ft to make it to the top of Mt. Hebo. I think we walked about a mile and half and then went back for lunch. In the evening we cheated and drove to the top of Mt. Hebo, where we had a huge view of the Cascade mountain range and the whole coast. Supposedly on a clear day you can see a huge swath of the Coast Range, numerous Cascade peaks from Mount Rainier south to Mount Jefferson, a section of the Willamette Valley and, to the west, the shimmering Pacific Ocean all the way to the horizon. We could see very, very far—and only imagine the sunset on the Pacific (the kids were too tired to enjoy—yeah, we’ll blame it on the kids—not the pregnant Mommy)

Sunday, we went on to the coast, the same place we viewed from atop Mt. Hebo. Since it was Mother’s Day, I got to relax and Roma built sand castles and searched for crabs and rolled down sand dunes and basically ran around all afternoon on the beach until we ate fajitas. What a wonderful weekend it was!

Estonia Roundup

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April is an interesting month to be in Silllamae. The seasons are changing from extreme cold to extreme beauty—so you catch the middle, kinda ho hum weather. Everyone is working because it is still winter/early spring and the buzz of summer hasn’t begun to spark people’s energy—and their own dreams of vacation.

But you feel like you are right on the brink of something amazing and the potential energy is winding so tightly that when it finally springs, paradise comes out for a few months---until the next winter! This is the time that we visited Sillamae, during the potential energy season; not spring or winter, but the in between time.

I went there with this thought in mind, and am very glad that I had the chance to see Estonia this way again. When I lived there before, I entered this period after the dark, dark, cold, very cold winter—and the early spring isn’t very inspiring after being so dark for so long. The past few times that we visited Sillamae have been in the summer, and it truly is paradise. There are good things in every season, there even can be beauty in the darkens of winter; I’m glad that we saw Estonia as it really is, not through rosy glasses of summer or gloomy glasses of winter.

Thank you everyone in Estonia for giving us a place to stay and good food to eat; putting up with us for a month; Thank you for letting us come at a time that was stressful for you because you were all still working. It was great, and beautiful and we had a wonderful time. Next year we will come in the summer and enjoy paradise with you. (hopefully)

Camping on the Clackamas

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In the Garden

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Second Birthday

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We have made it back to Portland and celebrated second birthdays, already! I have a lot of catching up to do on the whole Estonia trip, but as I procrastinate—time is passing us by. Life now is great, hectic and still adjusting to being home. We have already enjoyed Jamison park water fountain, gone camping, visited Art, Lucie and Mimi’s garden—and even got inspired and planted our own herb garden (it is only the second day, the packets promised results in 5 days...we’ll see).

Slowly, life is getting back to normal—which will probably happen just in time for Roma to go on his trip to Kamchatka—but check back in the next few days for the big catch up and hopefully some stories on what we have been up to.