More photos

After spending hours at the asian market, Molly found all the ingredients for pad thai. It's not an easy dish to cook at home. Molly has mastered it.



The cutest dog on earth



The dress I wore for our Red Dress Rugby Match. It was a fundraiser for Red Dress PDX, a non-profit that raises money for AIDS/HIV. Yes I wore this in a game. Not pretty.

Photos

Taryn, Mol and Petra when we snowshoed at Mt Baker, WA.



Hiking in the Gorge



Mt on the drive to San Fran

Yes we are still alive

Hey there. Every time I get on here I feel like I'm apologizing for not posting more often. Well here is another "I'm sorry". I had sort of decided not to do the blog anymore because we were so far behind. Then when I was back east visiting, a few people said they still would love to read it. That was about 6 weeks ago. Soooo I'm finally getting around to it.

I realize words are less fun than photos, but just to catch everyone up, here is a quick list of things that has happened in the last couple months:

1. I started (and I'm nearly finished with) a pre-apprenticeship class for women in the trades. The class is intended to get women interested in and prepared for a career in any trade, including carpentry, electrical, road construction, sheet metal, hvac, plumbing etc. Women only make up 3% of the work force nationally in the trades. To make a long story short, women tend to work more jobs with lower pay, while men tend to work jobs with higher wages. Waitress pay vs $35/hour as a carpenter for example. In the class we learned math (again ugh), basic skills and the trades culture. We built gates, sheds, picnic tables, hand rails and a few other things. I'm mostly interested in carpentry but I'm also looking into weatherization. I'm not sure where this will lead, but hopefully the next couple weeks will narrow my life focus. Wishful thinking, I know.

2. Molly and I joined a rugby team. Yes full-contact, full-tackle rugby. We are part of the ORSU club. There are two men's teams and one women's team. We practice twice a week and compete on Saturday's. We traveled to San Francisco and Seattle recently to play. We beat the rival Portland team last weekend and we play another team out of Washington this weekend. Next weekend we travel to Missoula to take part in Maggotfest. Google it if you wish but we warned....we have been told it will be the greatest weekend of our lives. And we were told this by rugby players. I'm a little scared. You may be thinking "wow I thought Meg played field hockey, that's not like rugby". And you may also be thinking "I've seen Molly play soccer (or any other sport) and rugby is definitely the sport she should have been playing all along". Yes yes yes. Molly is amazing. Despite only playing one year of rugby in high school and one semester in college, she is by far the best rookie on our team. The rest of us look at her in awe. Rugby is a confusing game, maybe worse than field hockey. It goes against pretty much everything I've ever learned in sports. You can only pass backwards. You can stiff-arm people in the face. You can step on people with cleats. You cannot stop playing to see if your bleeding teammate is ok. You hate the other team while you're playing, then drink with them after the game. Confusing. I've never been so bruised (both physically and emotionally) but I think I'm hooked.

3. We moved in to our own apartment. Sandie and Donald were great hosts while we stayed with them. We got our own place about a month ago and it's been great. Great location and cheap rent. Everyone needs to come visit us!

So that's a quick update. I'll go through my phone and post some random pics soon.

Finally!!!!

We are house-sitting/dog-sitting up in the NW hills. We woke up this morning and it was snowing! It snowed for a couple of hours and we have a couple inches. We were supposed to do some yard work today. Not sure how well raking will go with the snow.


Chase misses all the snow in VT :(



Pacha in his jacket!

Seattle

We took a trip to Seattle this past weekend to see our good friend Taryn. We got there in time to see Taryn finish her 3v3 Ultimate Frisbee tournament. Then we went out to a vegan Thai restaurant (yum!), watched one of Taryn's housemates play some jazz at a little bar, then headed out for a couple drinks.

Sunday morning we had brunch with all her housemates, huevos rancheros (below). It was the best breakfast I've had in a long time.




Then we went for a short hike that overlooked the ocean. Seattle is pretty amazing. It's a lot like Portland only bigger and it's on the ocean. Gorgeous.

Sometimes we do stuff like this

Skateboarding with Chase. Only one near wipeout.





Molly, Chase and Pacha overlooking Portland from the Pittock Mansion. Mt Hood is in the background somewhere. And the sun is out!

WFR

WFR - Pronounced "woofer" is the acronym for Wilderness First Responder. If you're an outdoorsy person you may have heard of this certification. It's common and sometimes mandatory for people employed as guides, outdoor instructors etc to have their WFR cert. I have been putting off the class for about 5 years now with my excuses being that it's an expensive course and that I didn't have time to take it. The courses are offered all over the country (and world) at different places such as a college, outdoor center or NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) headquarters. Being unemployed, I do have a lot of free time these days, although it's not as much as you would think. Anyway, for Christmas I asked my family to help chip in for the cost of the course. Now that I'm living in a city, the class is offered more often and I can still sleep at home instead of in a dingy cabin with the additional cost of housing that is sometimes built in to the course cost.

So I took the class. It was offered across town at a place called TrackersPDX. We spent 10 days learning what to do in medical emergencies (or potential emergencies). We covered everything: wounds, fractures, dislocations, respiratory problems, neurological problems, heat problems, cold problems, drowning, CPR, lightning strikes, shock, cardiac arrest, splinters, sunburn and other issues that I can't think of right now. There were 30 of us in the class and we spent a lot of time in the classroom and a lot of time acting out scenarios. We switched off acting as the patient and as the rescuers. I can't give away all the secrets but as a patient I acted out asthma attacks, grand mal seizures (pouring my water bottle on my crotch before hand to portray my incontinence), unresponsiveness and having an amputated thumb. I will say that my acting skills are peaking.

After 9 days of class we had a day of testing, both written and a practical session. I passed but I think it was one of the most challenging tests I've ever taken. Being in charge of people in medical emergencies is stressful. I'll leave it at that.

Been a while

Hey so I know it's been a while since we posted last. I don't even know if people are reading this anymore. But I figured I would update it just in case.

We are adjusting pretty well to Portland. Mol and I are both still job searching (along with most people in Portland) but we have kept busy helping Donald with his gardening business. We have worked a few days with him and it's been fun learning how to do some landscaping stuff.

Some of you might be waiting for me to comment on the weather here. As everyone knows, it rains a lot in Portland, especially in the winter. As you can imagine this isn't easy to get used to. Molly has never been affected by the rain and I never understood it until now. Apparently no one in Portland is affected by rain. Everyone just carries on with whatever they are doing. I mean it rains nearly every day. Sometimes multiple times a day and sometimes it's just raining pretty hard all day. I do enjoy everything being so green, but seriously? I have only seen the sun 3 times since we moved here. We had two days this past week without rain and it was amazing. Today was nice and the next few days should be nice too. We'll see.

I'm taking a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course for the next week or so. It's a medical course where you learn how to deal with emergencies in the wilderness. Should be interesting and helpful for job opportunities and the safety of ourselves and friends when we play in the woods. It's 8-12 hours a day for 10 days so I haven't had a good chance to take the course until now (yay unemployment). My brain is mush after one day. But I did get to use a stethoscope today.

Mol is taking a coaching certification course next weekend. So we are both doing our best to spruce up our resumes. We'll see how much it helps!

Skillz

There seems to be some question as to how Goldberg and I beat Gina and Mol in snow soccer last week. Please watch this video to see my dominating skills as a GK. Keep in mind this is Gina (pro soccer player) taking a PK from about 7 yards away and me fearlessly shutting her down.

Breckenridge

We headed to Breckenridge on the 4th. We rented a cabin outside of town and spent a few days relaxing in the mountains. Some of us are experienced skiers/snowboarders and a few of us aren't. I am in the inexperienced group. I was pretty nervous to board in Breck. I mean it's the Rockies. Plus Molly is pretty much a pro. Learning how to ski or snowboard as an adult is dumb for several reasons A) Adults don't bounce or bend like kids B) Hopefully the survival-instinct section of your brain is more developed, so moving at a high rate of speed down very slippery, steep terrain littered with trees, shouldn't seem like something smart to do C) I hate doing things I'm not good at.


Anyway, I sucked it up and went for a couple hours on the 5th. Molly and Goldberg had gone all day so by the time I got there in the afternoon, they had no problem staying on the easy trails with me. The 7 of us all went on the 6th....for the whole day. The combination of a couple stops at the bar and the lack of any major falls, made it a successful day on the slopes. We were sore but made it home in one piece.

Top of the slopes

Dani and Kaleen (beautiful!)

Mol and I on the lift. Notice the sick purple goggles that I borrowed from Molly's mom.



Note - Skiing all day at 9600 feet, then sitting in a hot tub and sipping one glass of wine = drunk for 10 minutes then instant hangover :(

New Year's

Early in the Fall we decided that we would spend New Year's in Colorado with Daniela. We got a good deal on flights to Denver and tried to get all of Molly's housemates from college to fly out and meet us. But we know that Colorado is a long way from the east coast so it ended up being Dani, Molly, Goldberg, Gina and I. We flew in on Thursday and braved some snowy roads to get to Boulder. The 5 of us stayed in Dani's tiny apartment that was featured in a recently posted video of us getting Chase into the loft. Yesterday Dani had to work some so she left the rest of us to play in the snow. We bundled up and headed to the park for some snow soccer. Molly's choice of teammate was Gina (yeah she plays pro soccer in Germany). So Goldberg and I had to put the two soccer players in their place by beating them at their own game. We then rescued Dani from the lab and went home to eat some salad rolls. We had dinner in town and then hung out a bar for a bit before coming back to Dani's apartment for a small dance party to welcome in the new year. Dani dropped Gina at the bus just before 7am for her flight home so she can get back to Germany in a couple days. Our plans now are to hang out in Boulder for a few more days before meeting a few other friends in Breckenridge. More updates to come.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!