Hood to Coast Relay Race

My sister Becca and her boyfriend Kevin came to town for the Hood to Coast race.

We went to the Edgefield McMenamins in Troutdale for lunch before the team headed up the mountain.

They start off around 7 PM and run through the night ending up in Seaside, OR sometime around 1 PM tomorrow. Becca is scheduled to run legs 4, 16, & 28.

Forest Park - All Trails Challenge

Monday morning, Aaron and I went for a short hike on wildwood trail... We started wondering how long it actually was and how many miles of trails are there within Forest Park. The library is pretty slow on Mondays, so I decided to investigate.

I discovered the All Trails Challenge. I decided we should do it. Not to get the certificate or whatever, but because it would be fun and interesting. Plus, there's a nice check list of the trails. It turns out that we hiked section W5, in addition to some of the other trails near the Portland Audubon Society.

Sara 1 : Rose 0

BEFORE:

There's a door behind this mess. Can you see it?

Our "side yard" is rather narrow, but Sami's rhubarb patch is there and it leads to the the back yard, so I wanted to be able to access it.

The gate is nice and the hinges are in good shape. The latch is broken, but shouldn't be difficult to replace.

AFTER:

After a nasty game of tug of war with the rosebush I managed to pull the smaller old trellis out.

The arch had been in a corner of our backyard, but there was no bench or doorway or statue underneath it. I figured it could be more useful in this spot. Unfortunately it was quite rusty and sort of falling apart, so I wired it together as best I could.

Luckily our friend Aaron stopped by just then and helped me put it in place. When we got the arch where we wanted it, I cut off about half of the rosebush and tried to train part of it to go around the arch. I hope to train other branches of the rosebush to go across the house later.

Surprise! A Birdhouse.

After I cut back a lot of the greenery in the doorway, I found this birdhouse. So cute. I wonder if any birds are using it now?

Pears Pears Everywhere

It's literally raining pears in our backyard.
I've canned a batch every day since tuesday.

Sami's Off to Finland!

Well, Sami left for Finland yesterday morning. He was actually able to catch his flight this time, (unlike previous occasions where the flight left early or was canceled and they didn't notify him), so he called me twice from PDX to confirm that he was actually leaving.

I just got an email and a phone call from him a couple of hours ago saying that he's arrived, slept and is supposed to meet up with his brother Tomi and his family today.

Unfortunately Sami forgot to pack his camera, so I hope someone takes some pictures of his trip for him :)

Anyway, for those who don't know, Sami flew to Helsinki, then took the bus to Forssa where his family lives. Later he will go to Tampere (where we went to school) to see friends.