Volcanos from the sky

Our inflight entertainment from Seattle to PDX was volcano after volcano after volcano. It is fair to say that 'the mountains were out' which is such a rare thing in the rainy Northwest.

Reiner

St Helens




Mt Hood

American High school


PDX and the Max Line

Beach days

We drove through the amazingly tall trees to the enormous Cannon beach that was covered in people. Okay most of the world would think that the beach was fairly sparsely populated, but it now feels rather full of people compared to the beaches I hang out on in New Zealand - granted that beaches are wintry cold at the moment there:)

Return down under

Well its finally time to fly back to New Zealand. I now feel that I have two homes, one in Oregon and the one Traveler and I are creating in NZ. I guess I am more torn about this than I realized as I just missed my flight back --- for wonderful and rather silly reasons.
I spent all night worrying about how my baggage situation would work out (they gladly checked it all the way through to Wellington for me and only charged me for one extra bag once) when the real problem was that I forgot to look at my boarding pass and failed to realize that my flight was leaving 45 minutes earlier than when I booked it. So my best friend and I had a lovely breakfast together oblivious that my plane was boarding while we chowed down enjoying a few last moments together:)

Oh well, it gives me an extra couple hours at PDX with its great atmosphere and free wireless Internet while listening to a man chat on a cell phone with a voice nearly identical to Traveler's uncle.

And as I sit here I realize I have ample time to post a few post flood memories...

There was the impromtu gingerbread house making with my honorary niece Aiden, who not only bravely dove in to follow my fearless approach to sugar icing application but also tolerated me braiding her hair to pull it out of the sugar zone...

I do hope I get a photo of the finished project
Then there was my family's day trip to the spectacular Oregon coast. There are few coastlines that rival Oregon's for awesome scenic power. After the recent storm we weren't sure what we would find... there were plenty of subtle signs of the damage, but most of it had been already cleaned up. Saturday's weather was perfect. Not too cold and uncharacteristically sunny. What the Oregon coast offers up in beauty, it pays for in windy chilliness.
We were there on official family business; It seemed fitting to mark my 29th birthday by giving up my paternal grandparents ashes to the Ocean, as was their wish. It was a simple affair marked my father's brief words (with lengthier pontifications on the car ride down) that I think would make anyone proud.

In Ketty tradition, we ate a good meal together. My grandma was always giving you some cash to take yourself out for a good meal. My only food memory stronger than this was her insistence to send me with tin foil wrapped pork chops on the plane.
This beach is were I spent much of my summer childhood. I was sure I'd get married there. Instead its become a touchstone of key moments for me. It was were I went before my surgery that may have forever changes our options for growing our family. Its where I took Traveler to try to reveal a bit more about who I was as a kid. Now in spite of the sunniness above, Oregon is known for rain. I've read novels where people talk about how Oregon houses all covered moss. This is not something that I associate particularly with Oregon, but near my best friend's house I saw this:

And really, you know that you are home in the presence of the best friend ever when you wake up in her house long after she's left for work to see this.... ... she has not only saved a toothbrush she gave you on your last visit in anticipation of your return, but remembered where it was and laid it out for you to find when you finally woke.

Other memories include my day in the city with Mom... shopping our hearts out, although I did have the will power to pass on these boots that I guiltily desired but realized the money would bring me way more joy spent on food, or camping gear, or bike lights or... well a million things really.
And nothing is as priceless as noticing new things about your home. For example I never noticed that if you get high enough in the Gallery parking lot you can see the hills in the distance!

We selected a tree to chop

I attempted to recreate Alex and Sean's wonderful Peruvian Chicken Soup with limited success..
But it feed us until birthday cake time
I even altered my own pants, which really isn't as hard as I thought it would be. Pinning is a more useful activity than I've ever really let myself believe before. It also was a reality check on how much my body has changed in this past year. I've never really had to alter my clothes before (other than altering great Goodwill finds that a different sized body previously loved).

Which brings me back to my dear Grandma Ketty. Next to my mom's sewing machine was this box. I'm nosy, I peered inside. It was filled with sewing notions that belonged to grandma. Maybe its technically “the modern day” but I bet more of us women than you'd likely suspect have a sewing box tucked away in each of our houses. We may not use them often, but we often do have one...

Log Cabin

We all have dreams. Some are verbalized, some aren’t. My parents often verbalized their dream of building a log cabin. Well a few days after I left for New Zealand last year a large section of trees blew over in a hundred year storm.
This completely changed the feel of pulling into our drive way. No longer did it feel like discovering a hidden location in the forest. The road was right there and everything felt exposed. The trees that held our childhood tree platform and zip line (e.g., flying fox) were now horizontal. We were lucky that it was the road and not our house that greeted the falling trees.

Flash forward to my return home nearly a year later and the trees have been cut, stripped, and partially assembled into a cabin.

Nearly every day we wander out there to sit and admire the view of the hills and take in the view of my father’s pond creation.

It’s amazing what happens when you build on a site that you know intimately well from years of living nearby. You know the sun’s exact arch at any given time of year, where the water pools during the rains, and which hills are due for logging in the future. Who knows how many years the apple tree will survive, but it’s perfectly framed in the cabin’s window.
Technically it will be an ag building with the ability to dry wood and random creative projects, but I'm lobbying for a sleeping platform in the rafters for me and any future kids to sleep in when we visit.

Thanksgiving

I broke up the shopping experiences of Black Friday with good quality family time for thanksgiving. We opted to eat a day after Thanksgiving to allow us to relax a bit before attacking the meal preparations.
And boy did that work out well.
I know that I sometimes say negative things about my home country, but Thanksgiving is a wonderful American holiday. I am not forgetting about the horrible things that happen to the first people to lived here. That isn’t the holiday I celebrate. My holiday is about giving thanks, eating seasonal food, and reflection. I believe that the pilgrims based their holiday on a Jewish custom of thanksgiving. I like to think that my holiday is also about giving thanks – not puritanical views on society, sex and fun, nor on fundamental religious values, nor to forget the Native Americans who fared so terribly when white people arrived to this continent.

I also LOVE setting the table for holiday meals. Always have, probably always will. This year we were using my Grandma Ketty’s china; it is unlike anything you can buy nowadays. You touch it and feel history and remember things. For me I remember seeing it in the cabinets up at the Haskel in rural New York being amazed of what you can find in the closets in semi-remote areas.

The post feast walk is another tradition in my family.

It didn’t matter where we were celebrating a holiday, typically once the plates were cleared there was some kind of walk. At the Gruebe’s Easter, we walked the length of half mile lane. Some years we drove to University Falls or to some other location Dad had discovered in the valley. But more often than not, we walked around the property noting the changes that happen year to year and season to season.


The after walk entertainment varies. Traditional options included playing music together or cut-throat scrabble games. This year Adrian taught me to play cribbage. My mental math skills are dramatically improving!