Saturday, November 29, 2008

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Last night we went to the Christmas Tree Lighting in Pioneer Square. I'm a sucker for anything Christmas. :) It was a pretty big event, so we ended up standing across the street from the square. That was all fine and good, except that the stage in the square was facing away from us, and they did not put up any speakers facing the crowds around the square. What that amounted to was about 40 minutes of "wah wah wah, wah wah wah wah" (remember how the adults talked in Peanuts cartoons?) and muffled music before any lights! After much anticipation, we heard a countdown break out in the crowd, and knew it was finally time. Wahoo! It was okay though, the crowds were mildly... entertaining?... in the meantime. Yeah, we'll go with that.

Here is the gigantic 75-foot Douglas Fir pre-lighting:


And voila! Post-lighting:


And for your viewing enjoyment, the countdown and actual lighting!



There you have it. Since the crowd was around 25,000 people (most of them trying to navigate the streets with litters of children and monster-truck-sized strollers), we hightailed it outta there as soon as it was lit!

I'm off to grab dinner at Cha! Cha! Cha!, the best cheap Mexican place ever!

Oh, in case you're reading, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARIE! I hope my bestest cousin forever has a wonderful day and doesn't have to deal with too many ka-razy holiday shopppers. XOXO!

Love,
Jenny

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Apparently I have chosen to liveblog Thanksgiving...

Oh man... so full. We just finished a most excellent dinner. Standing rib roast with a rosemary horseradish crust, garlic mashed potatoes that were absolute perfection, mashed sweet potatoes (not pictured, I took the pic before they were plated!), and green beans. Mmmmmmmmm.


No, it is not a trick of photography... the roast was really that gigantic. Needless to say, we have some leftovers. :)

Buckley even got a gourmet dinner: rib roast meat n' scraps, mashed sweet potatoes, and some kibble for crunch. He is one puppy that has much to be thankful for.


I think I'm officially done blogging for today. :) There is still pumpkin pie and whipped cream to come, so I need to lie down and let this food settle to make room!

Again, we hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of food and friends and family and awesomeness. Love to you all!

Jenny & Paul

Tree is done!

Well, except for the star... this star is hopefully temporary until we get a new one. So don't laugh at the sad little star made out of wire garland. :)



Let's hear it for the rockin' LED lights! Lower power usage, plus they look truly awesome.

And while we're watching Michigan State (hopefully) kick Maryland's arse, Buckley is having a good time watching football:

He's been sitting out there watching a family play catch for quite some time.

Well, dinner is just about ready, so I am off to enjoy. :)

Love,
Jenny

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday! Paul and I are just hanging out at home today, eating and drinking. Paul started us out with a delicious breakfast.


And I am happy to report I am now on my 3rd mimosa. :)

We're having a standing rib roast (which just went in the oven), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green beans for dinner. Check this out:


Does that look amazing? I can't wait to eat...

We're also putting up the tree today! I just got done sorting the branches.


We got new ornaments and LED lights this year, so I will post a picture as soon as it's done! After the official Mayo family tree lighting, of course.

And just for fun, some shots of Buckley having a lazy day on the couch (these were actually yesterday):


It has been a little while since the last blog, however nothing exciting has really happened. Just been living life! Next Friday is the downtown Portland tree lighting, so I will definitely take some pics and post about that. There is a HUGE Douglas Fir right in the middle of Pioneer Square, I can't wait to see it lit up!

Oh, this was semi-exciting for me... I finished a crochet project I was working on for a few weeks! I did a scarf made of granny squares and pom-poms. I heart it.



Now I need a new coat to go with it...

I'll post again later once dinner is done and the tree is up. I hope everyone has a wonderful day. We have lots to be thankful for!

Love,
Jenny

Monday, November 17, 2008

Junk to Funk

On Saturday night our lovely, lovely friends Sam and Audra took us to the most interesting fashion show I've ever been to. It's called Junk to Funk, an annual event to showcase wearable fashion made from, well, junk (think "Derelicte" from Zoolander, but way better). I think "trashion" is the appropriate term. It was amazing. There were 30 contestants who each made an ensemble from random findings - Sam and Audra's friend Emie was in the show wearing her creation, a corset made from wire hangers and bottle caps shaped like a butterfly in the front ("Madame Bottlefly," so cute!). There was an outfit made entirely from old power-suit shoulder pads, a gown made of pages from Vogue, a gown made from couch scraps that looked straight from Marie Antoinette, a cocktail dress made from record albums... you get the idea. It was so fun!

The only bummer of the night was that I forgot to charge my camera battery. Boo! I was only able to take a few blurry shots of the show while my camera was busy dying. The biggest bummer is that I didn't get to take a pic of Audra and I, undoubtedly the hottest things there. I finally got to take my Betsy Johnson dress out for a night on the town, and Audra had this sassy hot pink pill hat with a Russian Tulle blusher-type-thing on it... I mean, damn. But, you'll just have to use your imagination. :)

I cannot quite remember what this was made from, but it was adorable:


This is the gown made from old Vogue pages:
A very unclear shot of the record album dress:
This is Emie, or Madame Bottlefly :)
I can't remember what this gown was made from either...

And a final catwalk by some of the contestants:
(That is our mayor-elect Sam Adams in the background emceeing, with the blue bubble-wrap tux jacket)

I must apologize for the quality of the photos. With the battery clinging to life, my camera wasn't adjusting to lighting and whatnot very well, and also wouldn't let me zoom. We'll have to go next year. :)
I am about to embark on a glorious 3-day weekend, very excited! I wish I had some glamorous plans for my time off, but I can assure you it will consist mostly of cleaning house and riding bike. Oh! Some girls from work and I are going to a hip-hop class tonight, which should be interesting... I have no idea if I can dance like that anymore. Should be awesome.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Wine Country

Just a short post with a few photos! Yesterday we took out my car (for the second time in almost two months - man I love that) and headed to wine country! The Willamette Valley is known for its Pinot Noir growing capabilities, and has more than 200 wineries in the appellation. If you like pinot noir, this is heaven.

We headed out with the intention of just going to Archery Summit, where we are members of the wine club, to pick up a few bottles for our fall allocation. The photos really don't do it justice, but the view was just gorgeous. Autumn here is so pretty.





And of course we brought Buckface. :)


Long story short, our 4-bottle trip to Archery Summit turned into a 10-bottle trip, also hitting Ponzi, Argyle and our fav White Rose (the pic at the top right of this blog is taken from White Roses's 1000 ft. vantage point). Not a bad day. :)

I was serious about Thanksgiving... who wants to visit?? Come on!!

Love,
Jenny

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I meant to say earlier... thanks to everyone who responded to my post. I feel better now. :)

So... did everyone celebrate last night?!?! I hope so! I had to work, but it wasn't too bad. We were super slow but had a good bar scene, most of which was glued to the TV. Paul came to visit which made the night even better. There really was a great vibe - a sense of comradery amongst everyone there (in case you didn't know, like 99.9% of Portland backs Obama). I look forward to seeing what next year brings.

While I was at work yesterday I took some shots of our dining room and patio, because I think it looks absolutely beautiful right now. We have not removed any of the fallen leaves, which has created this amazing picturesque background to our glass-walled dining room. I thought I would share. :)




Pretty huh?

Paul and I both had today off, so we decided to bike to another neighborhood we hadn't checked out before, the Belmont District. It's another great distinctive Portland neighborhood, lots of independent small businesses, coffee shops, cafes, shops, etc. We had an amazing breakfast at Pine State Biscuits...

We had already heard of their most famous creation, the Reggie. We both opted to go for the Reggie Deluxe, of course. :) Yowza. This is a sandwich. Fried chicken, cheese, bacon, an egg, and their delicious gravy on one of their famous biscuits. No, it's not a dream... this sandwich actually exists. Probably not something you'd want to eat on a regular basis, given its heart-attack-on-a-plate-ness. But we biked a few miles (mostly uphill) to get there, so I figure we earned it!

(I was so engrossed in my sandwich, I neglected to take a picture. This shot is borrowed from the Portland Mercury).

We also made a stop at the Wunderland arcade in the Avalon theater, also on Belmont. Very cool old-school nickel arcade. We spent 45 minutes or so here, but it could be a very fun place to waste an afternoon! And we now have 75 tickets to burn at their prize counter, but we are going to save them up for a very special piece of blinking neon artwork we spotted. Only 3,920 tickets to go (hey, we did it at Dave & Busters!).

Paul had his ultra-reflective cycling gear on. :)

And I think our parents and siblings will appreciate this...

Big Buck Hunter... Safari Edition!

We wound down the afternoon at the Belmont Stumptown. Paul takes the MPRE (Multi-state Professional Responsibility Exam) on Saturday, so he's been studying up for that. Next up is the bar exam in February!!!

And this might not be that cool, but I think it's cool. They serve Mexican Coke here, because they use cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. It tastes so much better! Not so syrupy, just nice and sweet. Aaaaaahhhh.


We are planning to head out to Archery Summit tomorrow to pick up our fall allocation (we are now members of their wine club). Yay!! No other big plans coming up. Still trying to decide what to do for Thanksgiving... cook dinner, or nice dinner out? Hmm. Anyone wanna come visit??

Love,
Jenny

Monday, November 3, 2008

Such a trickster

As you know we have had Buckley in training for the last month or so. It is going pretty well... slowly but surely, we're seeing some changes in his behavior. He does really well when we are actively training him (aka when we have treats in our hand) but still has more energy than he knows what to do with for the rest of the day. Our trainer brought us this book called 101 Dog Tricks so that we could start channeling some of his energy into some great tricks, particularly ones that involve jumping (since he has such a charming natural affinity for it).

So, the first trick I picked out is "jump over my knee." It took Buckley about three days to master this one. :) Check it out:



The video is a little dark since it was last night, but hopefully you can see how awesome he did! Oh, and don't mind my PJ's. We were having a lazy night. Next up: jumping through a hula hoop. As soon as we can find a place to buy a hula hoop. It's only a matter of time until he's jumping through flaming rings of fire...

And yes, that's right, you still see unpacked boxes in the background. We haven't quite completed our furniture collection you see. And one of those pieces of furniture is one that would hold the things in those boxes. We're getting really really sick of seeing those boxes around, but what can ya do.

And just for fun, here is take one of that video. :) When we were about to start, Buckley let out this ridiculous belch that cracked us up.



That's it for now! I miss everyone!

Love,
Jenny