That reminds me of a story...

Mom and dad had an old air pump pellet gun that they had for years and years. I remember mom shooting at blue jays to scare them away from the bluebird house - kinda like Jim's mom, a rifle, and blackbirds. Is that a Tennessee mom thing? There was a huge pine tree in the back yard right next to the screened in porch that the bluebird house was mounted on. Mom had put a metal sheet (painted tree color) around it right below the bluebird house to keep the squirrels from getting to it and chewing a big hole in the birdhouse to move in. One day I was on the patio under the screened in porch, and mom was shooting at a blue jay from the deck. The shot hit the guard on the tree and ricocheted. It hit me in the shoulder. I sustained a nice little bruise, and I also added a nice little story to tell about my mom - "the day mom shot me".

When mom and dad moved to Oregon from Knoxville they got rid of alot of things. Carl is one of mom's best friends. She gave him the cursed pellet gun when they were moving. Apparently he had been searching for a gun just like it for a long time. It was like one he played with when he was a kid. How weird is that? He was really happy to get it.

I have wanted to tell him the sorted history of the gun for quite some time now. So Carl... I just wanted you to know the sorted past of the gun. Lucky for me, mom is usually a horrible shot.

Well except the time she was trying to scare a blue jay and she shot his leg off... but that's another story.

The Mayfield Bunch

Carl, Wanda, and Grease. What a bunch of cuties! I know mom misses them like crazy. I sure do miss them too. Some of the world's sweetest people!

Hey guys... when am I going to get one of those mayfield zippered hoodies!

Happy Birthday!

Last week was Andreea's birthday, and she was in Mexico. So they took that opportunity to decorate her cube with aluminum foil. They wrapped EVERYTHING. It was awesome. Her chair was the best.

Yeehaw!

Another rental. I got this one when I took jim's subaru in for an oil change.

The Motherload!

You know sometimes I wonder how the artifacts of our lives will be interpreted by archaeologists. So of course I wonder the theories inspired by dozens of tennis balls that now live under the deck. We have started buying tennis balls in bulk. When we brought this bag of 12 balls into the house, muldoone went crazy. If one tennis ball is good... 12 tennis balls are heaven. He would pick up one ball and the whole bag would follow. He was very confused.

Gross

We came up the stairs to leave the autoshow, and we saw this in the lobby. I got hysterical. It took me a few minutes to process what exactly I was seeing. It looked like the air play-pretty was giving birth to little kids.

Creepy Stuffed Kids

This was a charity booth asking for money to help out little kids. You could register to win that gag-yellow mustang. The bad thing was the little stuffed kids. They look like they are being punished because they were bad.

Weekend Fun

Jim and I went to the auto show downtown. It was fun and a bit scary. It is always entertaining to people watch, and there were plenty of people there to watch. It was not as big as the Chicago auto show, but the major car manufacturers were there. We got to sit in just about everything. Man are there some ugly and uncomfortable cars out there. We rode the light rail down to the convention center from beaverton. It was fun and again... good people watching. Poor Jim gets a bit motion sick or I would have made him ride it all the way in both directions.

The weekend was so gorgeous. Sunny and warm. It is supposed to be like that all this week as well. That's depressing, eh?

Life's Simple Pleasures

I've had a rough week. Just sort of long and tiring, but I cannot explain the joy in my heart as I drove home today. No... it was not because it was friday. It was all because of a school zone. I drive just a couple of miles to work, and there are 2 school zones. There is just about 20 feet in between them. The sign said the speed limit was 20 mph from 7am to 5pm. Oh and you guys know how hard that is for me! Well they have installed those flashing lights, so I only have to go 20 mph when they flash.

Woooohooo!

It is sad that I am so excited about this, but those school zones were the bain of my existance.

The Ross Island Bridge

The tram landing station

The OHSU Tram

Finally I got to see the OHSU tram in action. It was really awesome. I really need to ride it next time I am there. I don't think Jim will ride it with me.

Mt Hood from OHSU

Oregon Health Sciences Univeristy is located on one of the best spots in portland. It sits up on the top of Marquam Hill, the ridge overlooking the Willamette River. I went to the doctor there on tuesday, and the views were awesome from the terraces. It was a little foggy that morning, but still beautiful.

Oh my!

Jim and I have officially started house hunting. We are leaving no stone unturned. Kinda. We are still trying to figure out the areas that we are interested in. We went south to check out a "fixer upper" and we found some really interesting things. Jim and I started singing "In the Ghetto" when we got into the neighborhood. It was terrifying. I love that the realtor is "Exit Realty".

Now does he look naughty?

Evil Sherman

Sherman gets a little bored sometimes. Of late he has been particularly naughty. He has been pulling stuff down off the kitchen counters, and then when there was nothing left he would pull stuff off of the bookshelves... like photo albums. I find it ironic that he chose his baby album. I know it is hard to imagine Sherman getting his barrel-chested body up enough to hang onto the side of the counter and reach things at the back, but he does. We have caught him twice. Booger.

I think he is trying to tell us something.

Mini Tabasco!

They had mini bottles of tabasco sauce at the hotel. They were about 2 inches tall. They were so cute!

Chicago Wrap-Up

Well we are going home tomorrow, and I am looking forward to some decent sleep. I have problems with the time change every now and then. I have been running on empty the last few days, and since I have to fly tomorrow I definitely will not sleep tonight. We had a nice dinner with some of the folks from work, and I promptly went back to the hotel and stayed up for hours.

Ahhhhh my bed! I can't wait.

Tif modeling the big purple hat

Isn't she cute!

Paul and Tif posing with the Crapper

It was really cold, and they were freezing their butts off.

All Hail the Hampton!

The PT Crapper

Isn't she a beaut'?

Chicago

It may be cold and snowy at home, but it is just cold here. And they say Portland is depressing! Gray. Gray. Gray. I'm only here for a couple of days, but for some reason it seems longer. We have alot to do and in a pretty short time. I sometimes find working with several offices spread across the world a pain in the butt. We have all this great technology, but somehow it never works out as well as face to face interaction.

We got the ultimate rental car. We got a PT Crapper... errr... PT Cruiser. SaaahWeeeet. It is quite the car. I tried drag racing, but I never even had a chance.

Here is a peice of sage advice to all of you: Never, and I mean NEVER buy a car that had once been a rental. Trust me. I know what I do to them. God knows what other people do to them!

I have taken a bunch of pictures, but you'll have to wait. I forgot the cord to download them with.

Dirty Subaru

Jim loves this stuff!

Mattie snarfing up the snow

Muldoone's old man beard

It makes me sad.

Muldoone

He loves that blue ball

Going after the ball

Babies in the snow

Down the driveway

Jim took some great snow photos at the house. I'm kinda sad I missed it.

The view from my seat on the plane

Snow at the Portland Airport

The dusting quickly turned to quite the accumulation. The snow was collecting on the roof of the terminal.

People are funny... aka: snow in Portland

Well i'm sure you all have heard... we had snow in Portland. It really started Tuesday morning. Of course I was sitting in the airport. Usually I'm sitting there because of the weather in Chicago, but tuesday it was because of the weather in Portland. It was just a dusting when jim dropped me off at the airport. Tiffanie called me and asked if our flight was cancelled... she was inching her way towards the airport. That's when I noticed how hard it was snowing outside. The flight was in fact not cancelled, but instead we were 4 or so hours late.

I am by NO means an experienced snow driver. In Knoxville the town would shut down if there was a threat of snow. But we had at least one pretty good snow a year - sometimes in late april. In Portland they don't apparently.

Jim is never going to let me live it down. I always missed the "blizzards" and tornadoes in Indiana, and now I missed the biggest snow storm in ages in Portland.

Here are some videos off of YouTube:

Dad said this one was on Jay Leno...




This guy is really funny...

Well it just got a little more interesting...

You guys remember when I posted about the dogs chewing up one of their collars? I mentioned that we never found the rest of it... I found it today. Sherman had been felling kinda under the weather. He had thrown up a couple of times over the last week, which is so not him. He threw up big time last night. I was concerned. So today when I got home from work I followed him out to see if all was okay on the other end. Wellllll. He pooped out the rest of the collar - grunting the whole time. Poor guy. I had to help out a little. I won't go into detail. It still makes me feel a little woosey. Much like mom's cats when they offloaded a big one... once he had gotten rid of it he tore around the yard like a new man. I decided not to post a picture of it, but you know I took one. If you are just DYING to see it send me an email. I'm sure my inbox will be overflowing with such requests by morning. Ha.

We were really lucky. It could have killed him. It took awhile, but it managed to come on through. Luckily he left the part with the metal ring when he first dined on the tastey collar. I had to measure it to make sure there was no possibility there could be anymore in there. It was 31 inches long. Yep... it was all there.

Snow... kinda

The hum-drum

It snowed overnight. We got some... actually it was more like slush and little slushballs. Apparently it got progressivley worse toward the coast. Mom said they had about 3 inches in McMinnville. That's so crazy. The sun was out all day here, and we are supposed to have sunny days through the weekend. It seems weird to not have a distinct winter here. Don't get me wrong... I'm not complaining.!

This week has been dragging by. I have been really busy though. Next week Tiffanie and I are going to Chicago. I'm kinda glad to get out and about next week. It seems like it has been awhile since I've gone anywhere, but that will probably change. My dance card is getting full, and I have some travel planned for the next couple of months.

Really though there is not much going on right now... which is nice. Jim and I have been staying in with the babies and relaxing.

My little sweetie

Will squirrels fall from the sky?

Nandina Berries

Arial and her favorite toy

Jim

Getting help putting together the bed frame

Jill!

Jill sent me this photo of her on New Year's and I just love it!

Fruit Bunny

Mom got me this bunny when we went shopping after xmas. I love Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers' fruit art.

Merry Xmas to Me

Well here is my new camera. You guys will be seeing alot of pictures taken with this little baby. Jim is taking over my other canon. I had gotten a different camera (not canon - that was my mistake) for myself for xmas, but I just didn't like it. So I went back to the canon, and I love it.

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you had a nice changing of the guard. I also hope none of you are in too much pain as a result.

So do you have any new year's resolutions guys? Good luck with those. I'm not sure if I am really commiting to my resolutions. Maybe I should have made THAT a resolution. Huh.

Oh... and I have an announcement: I am going to go back to calling James Jim. I just wasn't feeling it. Plus it saves me from typing 2 more letters.