Red Hot

The photo challenge today on one the sites that Heidi reads was warm. This burner is certainly more than a little warm, in fact, it was warm from a couple feet away. I had taken pictures of a couple other things, but the idea from Heidi was the best.

We finished The Golden Compass today and headed out to the theater to watch the movie. Boy was that a let down. Not only the movie, but the whole experience of going to the newly renovated Clackamas Town Center. Apparently they put a lot of thought into the mall, but not the parking lot. We spent nearly 45 minutes trying to get out of there. Maybe it was just crazy because of the holiday season and it being the weekend. It seemed more to me that there are too few exits for that large of a parking area.

As an aside, check out this video that popped up when searching for Clackamas Town Center.

-G

My phone

You know you're a really huge geek when you're blogging about a picture of your blog. Good thing we only have a few days of this year long blogging adventure left.

This was what I opened up on Christmas morning. I had no idea what Gabe got me for Christmas this year. I've wanted an iPhone since they came out, but they were crazy expensive and we don't use AT&T. Well, I guess Gabe figured it was time to get me one. I really think he just wanted one. He's actually been playing with it way more than I have! :)
It's super cool. I have my calendar, address book and iTunes music from my computer all synced up to it. Awesome! Plus, we used it when we went to Beaverton tonight to have sushi with Peggy (she and Paul are in town from LA) and her family. Love to have google maps right at my finger tips...all the time.
-h

Pomegranate

This is half of one of the pomegranates that was left over from our Christmas party. I'd never really seen one, let alone eaten one until I met Heidi. In fact, these are the first ones I've ever purchased. I can't believe how popular they have gotten, I mean, there's a 7-Up that's pomegranate flavored! After reading about them in the Wikipedia article, and seeing an episode of Good Eats where they were featured, I can see why they've become popular. They are tasty, and pretty good for you. But, what fresh fruit isn't?

-G

Battle it out

We got this game for Christmas from Heather and Ryan. We decided tonight would be a good time to get it out and give it a try. What was I thinking? Gabe had me beat in 4 moves. Let's just say that geometry was my worst subject and chess is my least favorite game. It's going to take me a lot of practice to get good at this one. Maybe Gabe will just have to find someone else to play with since I'm no competition. Any takers?
-h

Merry Christmas!

Photo by Gabe

We hope everyone had a very happy Christmas.
Here's our Christmas story:
We got up "early" to open gifts and there was a very light dusting of snow. A white Christmas doesn't happen in Portland, so being in Oakridge we had a better chance. Gabe's Christmas wish came true. I think I had him pretty fooled into thinking he wasn't getting a Wii. "They are just too hard to get your hands on." He was thrilled!
After watching part of A Christmas Story, took off to drive up to my parent's house. About Salem the snow started. We couldn't believe it! Snow on Christmas! Of course, none of it was really sticking. After all, it was 34 degrees...but it was fun anyway. It did slow us down just a little bit.
We got to my parents and started opening gifts. Becky couldn't wait any longer! We had a big meal and played. Gabe hooked up the Wii, and even my dad gave bowling a try. Gabe and Jory had a great time playing with the RC Helicopter we got Jory for Christmas. Then we played the longest game of Battle of the Sexes possible. Seriously, I think we were playing for an hour and a half! At that point it was getting late and we needed to get home. Gabe had to go to work today. (Although, I called him an hour ago and he and Ross are playing with the Wii on the projector at work. Apparently, a lot of work needs to get done today!) We came home, gave Jupiter some love, opened our stockings and went to bed.
It was a great day filled with time spent with our family.
Happy Holidays!
-h

Christmas Eve

We went up Salmon Creek with the dogs. Gabe's cousin Megan had her yellow lab, Sitka, with her. And little Flora had never played in the snow. They had a blast. Chasing each other and wrestling in the powder. We didn't end up going up the pass to snowshoe because it was snowing up there like crazy. It's really not very fun to snowshoe while the snow is pouring.

After our adventure with the dogs, we got cleaned up and went up to Gabe's Aunt and Uncle's for Christmas eve dinner and gifts. I bravely tried the oyster soup, a family Christmas eve tradition. I'll just say it's not my favorite and now I know for next time.
-h

Flora's First Christmas

Flora got to open her first EVER Christmas present this afternoon. Yeah, it's a little early, but we couldn't wait. She was being a very "nice" girl, so we decided to let her open it before Christmas. I wish I was being nice enough that Heidi would let me open my present. Flora got an awesome new food dish, we couldn't resist it when we were doing some other shopping at Cost Plus. Hopefully she puts it to good use.

-G

Shake it!

Come on...shake it!
Gabe got to open his first gifts Saturday. Finally!
He was pretty excited about getting a new beer brewing apparatus and a video game he can't use. Sadly, he still doesn't own a Wii. Too bad...so sad. Maybe he'll be able to find one around his birthday.
After the Christmas celebration with Tom and Joanne, we came up to Oakridge this afternoon. We brought our snowshoes in hope of finding some snow around here, but it's gotten really warm today. We'll see...
-h

The Aftermath

So, here it is. The sewer work is inspected and done. Well, the work isn't done, but the sewer is installed and working. What you see here is whats left of our backyard. In talking to the contractor today, they won't be able to fully be done for another month or so. When you dig big trenches and then fill them in again, they need to settle. The trench is actually a raised mound at this point, but it will apparently settle out to the point where they may need to add more dirt. I really wish they would have been able to bore under the ground for this job. I know that things will get back to normal, it'll just take a bit longer than I wanted it to.

-G

What is it?

Or...what could it be? Gabe really wants to open our Christmas gifts tomorrow night since we'll be leaving to go see his family early on Saturday morning. And we won't be back home until Christmas night. For some reason, he doesn't think he can possibly wait that long. I think it's terrible to open gifts that early, but if he doesn't stop bugging me I may just give in. I have absolutely no idea what he got me for Christmas this year. It should be a huge surprise!

We went to see A Christmas Carol tonight. Gotta do something to really get us into the Christmas spirit! The Gerding Theater at the Armory is fairly new and this was our first time there. It's a really beautiful venue and the play was fun.
-h
Only one more wake up!

Bands of Rubber

What we have here is a collection of rubber bands I found in a dish on our window sill in the kitchen. They seem to mostly be from vegetables bought from the store with some others probably from random newspapers or ads that we get dropped at our door. I ended up throwing some away because the sun they get in the window had deteriorated them to the point of no longer having any elasticity. I'm not sure why I decided this would be what I took a picture of tonight, just something that I thought might look interesting.

-G

Gingerbread House

For girl's night, we had our annual holiday baking night. This year, instead of doing sugar cookies, Jen brought this boxed gingerbread house. Boy did we have fun decorating it! Maybe it's because nothing is more fun then endless amounts of candy and frosting. Plus, all of us were discussing the fact that we never did gingerbread houses as a kid. Guess we're making up for it now. After the excitement of baking and decorating, we opened our gifts. I know, I know...it's still a week until Christmas. It's just that for the next 2 weeks we're all going a million different places and won't have time to see each other, let alone exchange gifts.
-h
Only 3 more days of school!

A Flavor

Jupiter has it. Much like these other cats. I took the camera and new lens to guys night tonight, but I've posted enough pictures of us playing video games. We did have some awesome homemade double decker tacos and drink some of Mike's awesome eggnog, but that's about it for interesting things. When I got home Jupiter was being cute on the chair, so I decided to take some pictures of him. Somehow I caught him with his tongue out, which makes for an awesome flavor picture. Although my favorite and the original is this one.

-G

Here's the damage...

that was done last night. You'll notice very few of the bottles have much left in them, I think we did a pretty good job last night. And by the way, I've now mopped the kitchen floor 3 times...it's still sticky!
This picture was taken with our new lens. Gabe picked it up on Friday. It's a fisheye and it's really cool! We used some of our kicker check to purchase it. Let's just call it an early Christmas gift. The rest of our kicker has to go to paying off the sewer project that's now taken a year to get done! I decided to just play around with the lens a little today. I can't wait to try some landscapes with it.
-h

Mistletoe

The tardiness of this post and picture is due to the extensive preparations and celebration that was done yesterday. There was much to be cleaned and many things to be made. Plus, a few last minute errands.
Our house was filled with friends, food, laughter, and even a little dancing. We had a great time, but now we'll be spending the rest of our weekend cleaning up. My feet are literally sticking to the floor in the kitchen.

Before I put up the mistletoe last night, I got a quick picture. Sadly, I didn't get any kisses under it...
-h

Must Not Fail

So here's a picture.

-G

As you can see...we're both pretty ready to be done with this challenge. Neither of us were up to taking a picture. I had a tough day at work, we went out to dinner, and then went to the Live Wire Radio Show. The best part of the night was singing Puff the Magic Dragon with Peter Yarrow! It was really fun, but you can't really take a picture at an event like that. The show got over really late and then we headed over to Lola's Room to celebrate Carley's 30th birthday. Unfortunately, we never made it there. Traffic and parking were terrible. The line to get in was around the block. I wasn't feeling that great and I couldn't take it all. So we came home.
I'm feel so badly that we never made it...sorry Carley!
-h
The air date for the shows we saw is Saturday December 29th at 7:00pm on OPB radio at 91.5FM. Or you can download it from itunes!

Sheet O Peppermint

This is the final step to the brownies that Heidi linked to last night. This is a sheet pan of Star Brites melted in the oven until they became a continuous layer of peppermint. As it was melting it even smelled like peppermint in the kitchen, something I didn't expect from melting candy. After they are all melted, you score them into squares so they can be placed on the brownie squares. I'm pretty excited about them, can you tell?

-G

O' Christmas Tree

I know, you can't see the whole tree...but I do like how this picture ended up with twinkly lights. It's a much better "natural" tree than the one we ended up with last year. I'm very happy.

I've been up to all sorts of "holiday" activities the last few days. Yesterday, the girls and I met at the Pilsner Room for dinner and to watch the Christmas ships go by. It was fun. The ships are such a nice Portland holiday tradition. Watching them from inside the warmth of the restaurant is a wonderful thing. Tonight, Gabe and I have already started the great preparations for our cocktail party on Saturday night. We're pretty excited, this is our 5th year having our friends over to eat, drink and be merry. I'm making these brownies right now and am hoping to get some other things off the list of things that need to get done.
-h
Only 7 more school days before the holidays! Can you tell what I'm looking forward to the most?

'Tis the Season...

for wrapping presents. This is one of my least favorite activities relating to Christmas. I think mainly it's because I'm terrible at it. I just never learned to wrap presents with any sort of skill or style. Gifts that I wrap tend to be a little sloppy and usually only include a stick-on bow. It's a miracle if I manage to tie on a real ribbon and curl the ends like all the fancy present wrappers do. If I had it my way I'd hand over the gifts in the bag the store gave me. Is it just because I'm a guy? Are there guys out there that like wrapping presents?

-G

Smooth

In looking for inspiration this evening, I stopped by this web site to see what the mood was today. Sadly I came up pretty blank while trying to think of things that qualify as "smooth". The only thing I could really come up with is this jade necklace that Gabe gave me for my birthday. When I wear it, I often find myself gently rubbing it because it's so smooth. It's also usually warm from the heat of my skin too. I've always had an attraction to jade. It's such a beautiful stone. In fact, it was the most valuable stone in ancient China. Unfortunately, the color doesn't really fit with every outfit.
-h

Decorated

The tree we, as Megan said, cut out of the woods is now in the house and fully decorated. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by how nice it is. It's actually pretty full for being a "wild" tree. That's not to say the tree is without fault. The bottom half of it is certainly more dense than the top half, so much so there aren't even lights on the top couple feet. I don't mind though. There's something satisfying about having a tree that looks as nature intended it to look, with no meddling by the hands of tree farmers.

Elfed

My dad and mom made this today. Check it out. It's pretty funny!
-h

The Great Tree Hunt 2007

At sunrise this morning, the great adventure began. We were all loaded up with our warm clothes and hot drinks, we were ready to find the most wonderful Tannenbaum. We headed out east, toward the mountain we went. Where the snowfall is fresh and the trees are the best. As you can see the morning was amazing, the view was spectacular. The selection of trees was more than we'd wished for. This year's search was a complete success.

After last year's adventure (when I was walking through 2 feet of snow in my tennis shoes) it took some convincing from Gabe to get me out there this year. I didn't want a sad looking forest tree like we had last year, and I didn't want to walk around looking for a tree in the deep snow.
Here's a picture from last year. Notice how sad and thin the tree is...
Well, there was only about 2 inches of snow this year and we drove right to the spot where all the good trees hide. It wasn't nearly the adventure it was last year. Plus, today was a beautiful day to be out. This year's forest Tannenbaum will be featured in up coming posts.
-h

Tree Hunting Fuel

Tomorrow is the day we head out into the woods to find our Christmas tree. Josh and Danelle are supposed to be picking us up around 7:30 tomorrow morning to head out. We're on the hunt for a Noble Fir this year since we got skunked last year. Hopefully we can end up with something better than the Charlie Brown tree we got last year. The hunt is quite a bit of fun though. We head out, drink some coffee or hot chocolate, play in the snow, then find a tree that looks decent. Once we find the "perfect" tree, we get out the chainsaw and chop it down. Yes it's overkill, and yes, that's why it's fun.

-G

Tick-Tock

With the few remaining days we have to complete this whole photo a day thing...I thought I should probably experiment a little bit more. Can you tell this was a 3 second timed exposure? I like the movement of the right end of the second hand more than the tip. It's so much less "choppy".
I have to get up earlier than usual tomorrow. I'm driving down to Salem in the morning for a conference at the capital. I hope it's interesting and worth it. With all the trouble I put into making sub plans and getting up early, it better be good. I don't know what it was about this week, but I'm sure glad it's about over. I think even kids get crazy and stressed at the holidays. Why does it have to be that way?
-h

Putting the Pep in Pepper

Honestly, there really isn't much pep in red bell peppers. They do definitely taste good though. As I was getting dinner ready tonight I was thinking about what I could take a picture of. As I sliced the top off this pepper, my picture presented itself. I just thought the shape and the colors were very neat. Hey, it's even red and green for the holidays!

-G

White Lights

We bought new white lights for the Christmas tree. Yes...they're LED. This is our first year being LED only. They'll be on the house and the tree. Well, they'll be on the tree as soon as we finally get it. I think we'll be heading out to the woods to get it this weekend...

I had a heck of a time trying to get this picture. Because of the way these lights "flicker", I either ended up with pictures that were totally blown out or super dark. I had very few like the one you see.
-h

Nutcracker

I was really wanting a picture of our nutcracker doing his thing, chomping on something. This is as close as I could get. I had to manually operate his jaws, so it was pretty much impossible to not get caught by the camera. That's my "ghost" hand trying to get out of the frame on the left. The effect in his jaw area isn't quite what I was going for, but it's close. You can at least see some movement there and tell the mouth is in at least two positions.

My question is, do people ever really use these things to crack nuts?

-G

Fungi

These are some dried Porcini mushrooms that we used to make this delicious soup today. It's my new favorite soup recipe. We weren't up to much today...just cooking. There isn't much else one can do when the wind is blowing and the rain is pouring. Gabe also made a delicious pork roast in the crock pot. It was a perfect day for cooking and curling up on the couch with a book.

I feel extremely well fed right now and don't have the slightest desire to do the bag full of work I brought home to get graded this weekend. Fortunately, it will be there for me whenever I get around to it. We had such a nice relaxing weekend, I hate for it to be over already!
-h

Christmas Time at the Wests

It's now officially Christmas time at the West household. The lights are on the house. We took some time between the snow and rain showers to put the lights on our house. It's the standard job of getting the lights out, making sure they work (which we forgot to do), and then figuring out how we put them up last year. We got them all up, plugged them in, and found out that a strand was not working. A couple fuses later we were back in business.

PS - The sewer project has actually progressed, they cut a big hole in the street and made a big pile with the dirt they dug out. It look like it'll be done by the end of next week.

-G