Home Again

We are back in Seattle after another whirlwind trip to St. Louis. It was wonderful to see everyone again, although it's nice to be sleeping in my own bed again! Hopefully we'll actually get our suitcases empty and put away soon.

This photo was taken outside grandma's church on Mother's Day. Three (or is it four??) generations together.

Art From Portland

I mentioned in my previous post about some cool things we bought in Portland.

I got an awesome vase for flowers. I have several vases, but they are all big. They look great with big bouquets, but I don't grow enough flowers to always have huge bouquets. I wanted something smaller that would look pretty on the table with just a few flowers picked from our yard.

Here it is with some lavender, blue bells and scotch broom, all picked from our yard. Lavender grows like crazy here, and I am planting it everywhere. I love having it around the yard and in the house. The blue bells and scotch broom are basically weeds, but pretty weeds :)





Kendra's picture is something we both fell in love with as soon as we saw it. The artist was a woman named Sienna Morris (click here for her website and more examples of her work).

When we re-do her room from nursery to little girl room, I want this picture to be part of the focus of the room. It combines nature, a young woman reading and numbers - all things I hope Kendra will appreciate.

Numbers? Yes, the entire painting is made out of the numbers 1-12.


Here's close-up of the leaf on the far right of the painting. Pretty awesome, isn't it? I'd love to have more of her work.

Portland, OR

Dan went to Portland on Thursday to help an old friend with some computer work. He stayed at The Hotel deLuxe (if you want to see it). It seemed like a good time to go exploring, so Kendra and I took the train down on Friday to join him.

The train ride was fabulous! Beautiful, comfy and enjoyable. If time wasn't an issue I'd never fly again. Trains are so much more spacious and comfy. The scenery was amazing as well. Most of the time the tracks ran along the coastline, with the mountains in the distance. It's a trip I hope to repeat.

Today we wandered Portland, making sure to get a donut from VooDoo Doughnuts. I got the voodoo doll, and we brought a maple bacon back for Kai. They were every bit as good as their reputation. You know the food is good when the store is very tiny, located next to a live action porn theater that smells nauseatingly strongly of Lysol in the morning, and people are still lined up around the block for a doughnut.

Afterwards we wandered down to the riverfront for the weekly Saturday Market. It was huge, with tons of vendors. We each bought something (Dan got a new waterproof fedora-style hat, I got an earthenware vase and Kendra an awesome piece of artwork for her room). We had lunch there then headed back to the hotel to pick up my car.

On the recommendation of a friend, we went to a very pretty park, then drove just outside of Portland to Multnomah Falls. Both were gorgeous and well worth the visit.

Coming back into Portland so we could catch I-5 back home, we hit a MASSIVE traffic jam. It is normally a 3 hour drive from Portland to Seattle...it took us 3 hours to get through Portland. It took over 6 hours for us to actually get home. That part was not so fun.

All in all, a good trip, and one we'll be making again for a bit longer. I'd like to explore some more, and meet up with a friend of mine that lives there. She was out of town at the beach this weekend, so we'll have to try again.

Click HERE for pics of the trip. (You knew there had to be some, right :)

Bathroom Remodel Reveal

Our bathroom remodel was finally completed last week. I thought I'd post the before and after pics so you get an idea of how much work we did :)
It may have taken 5 times as long as we planned, but I LOVE my new bathroom!

Before...

After!