One year has passed...

Monday June 18th, 2007 - our 1st Year wedding anniversary. Cynfor and Jessie left on Sunday to stay the summer with their father in China, so that leaves Tara and myself here in the US with some time together. Obviously we miss the kids very much, but Monday was our wedding anniversary - and we had a lovely time alone together.

The pictures below are from the restaurant we had dinner. The Portland City Grill, which is located at the top of the US Bank tower. As you can see by the photographs, the view is spectacular. Even more so when the weather is quite clear.

After completing our fantastic dinner (left over cookies in the front of us)

A view out the window of some of Portland

Mount Hood in the distance

Mount St Helens in the distance

Big Balloon Festival

Last night we headed down to Tigard (a suburb of Portland), and enjoyed the Hot Air Balloon display. Cynfor and Jessie originally were not that keen on going with us, but after they got inside, and saw the balloons being inflated, they changed their minds.

As you can see by the pictures below, it is a pretty impressive site. In the first picture - the balloon that is in the main part of the picture is quite large and was designed to look like a truck. Sadly, because of the wind during the night, they had to let it down pretty quickly after it was inflated - because it was quite dangerous - but it looked very impressive anyway. (You can see it in another picture further on.)

The Portland Rose Festival - 100th Anniversary

The Portland Rose Festival is a little similar to Melbourne's Moomba. There is a parade, a carnival, and a lot of activities which happen mostly around the waterfront in downtown Portland.

This year was a special year as it was the 100th Year celebration for the festival. We did not go down to watch the parade as we had other things on, but we did see the floats on the day after along the street where they park them for people to look.

Below are a couple of pictures of us with the floats.

Jessie's big performance.

On June 9th, 2007, Jessie was part of a group of 15 students from their music school to perform in a recital. She was very excited, and was about the fourth person to play.

It was a great night, hearing all the different levels of capabilities from students who could sing, play drums, guitar or piano. She was lucky to have the opportunity to play on a lovely grand piano - and played very well.

Here are a couple of pictures from the night.

Aussie Day...

I was volunteered into presenting at the 2nd Grade "Aussie Day!" The idea was that I gave experiences of living in Australia. The photograph below is before the class was broken up to visit different "stations" which had all sorts of information about things in Australia. There was someone reading an Australian book - "Possum Magic," other things they did was made lamingtons, ate Kiwi fruit, and "Aussie bites", learned about the "cork hat", made paper boomerangs and many other activities.

In my station I spoke to them about the money we use in Australia, showed them - as well as talking about Aussie Rules football, meat pies and among other things.

In the afternoon there were more activities - they played "kanga ball" (a variation of cricket), saw someone throwing boomerangs and demonstrating the differences, sheep dogs and sheep herding, some Emu's, didgeridoo playing and other native Australian animals - including some small kangaroos, and sugar gliders.

The day was great - weather wise - both Tara and myself volunteered to help all day - which was fun, but quite hot in the sun!

Jessie's big performance...

So, tonight was a big night for Jessie, she was part of the Bethany Elementary School Talent Show. She played her flute - beautifully - and then sung with all the other children at the end. (Star Spangled Banner)

It was a good night, with many kids performing - at very different levels of ability - but fun was had by all!

A long weekend...

Monday was a public holiday in the United States for Memorial Day, although the weekend is to commemorate all those who have served for the US in the military, it is also an extended weekend. We were originally not sure what to do with the weekend, so on Saturday night we decided that we would head out for another "adventure."

We headed south east to a place around 4 hours out of Portland called Bend. It is a sizable place where many people have decided to retire to. It reminded me very much of a large country town like Bendigo or Ballarat near Melbourne. The population is around 75,000 people, but it is expanding. The weather was amazing, although it did not start off that well when we left on Saturday, by the time we reached Bend the sky was a beautiful blue, with very little cloud. It was a little cold in the evening, but that changed the next day.

The photographs below show a little bit of the trip, and some of the things we saw.

The mountain in the background is Mt Washington

This picture was taken on top of "Pilot Butte" a large Lava mound which overlooks Bend and the surrounding area.

This is in front of Mount Bachelor - another favorite destination for Skiers during winter.

How strange is this, here we are standing on a snow field in short sleeves, it was beautiful weather, but we were on SNOW!

Darren's visit to Boston

For work, Darren had to travel to Boston - which is on the East Coast of the United States above New York. He was there for three days, arriving on Monday night, and leaving Thursday night. Boston is a lovely City, and definitely a place that we will be visiting again as a family. Below are some pictures of the skyline, and some of the buildings. You may see - if you look hard enough - the Cheers bar in the bottom photograph.

The food and city in general reminded me of Melbourne. We ate Italian food for dinner one night, with coffee to follow and a desert of an Italian pastry - it was fantastic food. Pasta like we used to get in Melbourne, REAL Coffee!

A huge achievment...(for the car)

This news was actually a little while ago - about 2 weeks. The car we are loaning from our friends hit the big 150! (YES - 150,000 Miles)

I was excited, so I took some pictures to share!

Jessie looses another tooth...

Jessie today was watching television, when she bumped her knee into her top lip - and the tooth that she has been waiting to come out for around a month now - came out! Here is a picture of the tooth and her new "hole" ready for a new tooth.

A trip to Lake Oswego

Lake Oswego is just out of Beaverton, and is considered quite luxurious. The houses are very expensive there, and the area is based around the Oswego Lake.

We had not been there, so we thought we would head down to take a look. There are a lot of sculptures around, as well as lovely well kept parks and nice places just to visit. Here are some pictures from our day.

Spring has well and truely arrived.

The weather is starting to fine up. Today is a beautiful day, as was yesterday. There are still patchy days of rain, but it is getting warmer, and more time can be head out and about without the worry of doing things indoors.

Cynfor's soccer is back in-door again though, and below is a picture of him getting ready for the first game of the Spring 2007 season. He loves his soccer, and plays whenever he gets a chance. Actually he is enjoying anything, including throwing the basket ball and playing catch with his ball. Sometimes Jessie will join him, although she enjoys riding her bike more - so generally I will go out and play with him.

Here you can see the street with the trees in spring. We have pretty much seen all four seasons now, just waiting again for the start of summer.

Time to wash the car...

So, luckily for us, currently there are no water restrictions in Portland. We are able to wash our car without that problem. Many people still take their cars down to be washed at a service station, but we chose in this case to have the car hand washed by a professional at home. If you look closely enough - this is the expert washing the car this past friday - hasn't she done a great job?!