goodies from the days in bend

recently, michael took all of my old pictures and videos from my laptop hard drive and put them on the new computer....basically our lives from 2005 to 2007--pre-blogging days for me--flashed before my eyes, many memories i had forgotten.

cooking thanksgiving sister with my sister

my favorite picture of blake ever, taken on our 5th anniversary

adorable family picture in vancouver BC, october 2006

memorable sail on waldo lake on the catalina 22

this might be my fondest memory i have of the time before we decided to move: an epically beautiful fall day i drove out to DD Ranch in Terrebonne with my girls, drinking a delicious chai on the way, to spend the afternoon picnicing, wandering through the pumpkin patch, and taking a hayride. (this was taken by myself on the ride)

at one point my sister had imported all of her videos and pictures from our visits onto my computer, and some went back before we even owned a digital camera. having these little snipettes of little mayan and isadore are priceless!!


mayan is about three here and isadore one-ish.


four and two i think...mayan is pretending to be blake! hilarious...

Happy 1-year-in-Portland Anniversary to us!

Today, April 20th, we celebrate this one year anniversary of our move to Portland. Last year, we woke up bright and early in Bend, Oregon and Blake jumped in our moving van (packed to the gills) while I followed in our Suburban (also packed to the gills) and we headed over that pass the last time as mere visitors and arrived in Portland to our new home! Here is us the first night:
These are some of the things we've accomplished so far....we've gone from this:
....to this:

and this:
...to this:
another before:
....and after:
my favorite before:
.....after!
finally a playroom before:
..and after:
During our year here, we spent a lot of time here:
....doing a lot of this:
which, for Blake, looked more like this:
...and to the girls, like this:

We romped around downtown Portland enjoying the art and culture:

And all the while, in our beautiful backyard...
...our garden grew:
...as well as our business:

...and also our TRIBE:

Fertile soil here, I tell ya....
Already this place feels undeniably like HOME...
So, if you don't mind, Portland, I think the Nomad family may stay for a loooooong while....

three anniversaries...AND twice in one week!!

...takahashi that is. George and Gigi sent us a check for our anniversary, so we figured sushi was a totally worthy item to blow it on, yes?


Blake and I have THREE anniversaries technically. We were married on Oct. 5th, 2001 in Mexico, a wedding for *us*--not legal but very official to us. The ceremony was led by Blake's dear friend Father Daniel Jansen at the base of the temple Kukulkan in Chichen Itza--very romantic....it is our favorite one to celebrate.

Then we found out that Father Dan could not marry us at our *real* wedding (the white dress, rings, and food wedding) due to knee surgery so we asked Blake's father (a judge) to stand in--but he could not legally wed us in Oregon, so two days before the wedding, Nov. 21st, we hit the courthouse to sign some papers. The judge that officiated that happened to be the father of the guy who my best friend went to prom with. I lived in Bend for way too long.....

So 11-23 has always been a "psychic" number for Blake (loosely based on a Star Trek thing, i believe.....) and as his lady, i naturally adopted it. It ended up being the day after thanksgiving that year, so rehearsal dinner WAS thanksgiving dinner although we opted out and rented the fireside room at Scanlon's to fed us all. This year, the date also fell the day after Thanksgiving, and I had the foresight to order some prints yesterday, for pick-up today. Of the pictures that Amy took, I had not shown B the ones of just the two of us--so I got my favorite and also the family pic of us behind the red art sculpture. (see below)

On my way to get a frame for them at Michael's, i had a quick change of heart and decided to go our neighborhood framing place (very sweet cool people) and see what it would cost. yes, it would cost a lot more but the pictures are so nice, and i expect that he would like to put them up at Nomad...so what the hell. they put them on a temporary mat for me to take home and present to him, and i will return it tomorrow to get in line for framing--probably two weeks until it's ready. but it's gonna be sweeeeeeeeet! then i can RE-gift it to him when the shop opens! double sweeeeeeet!!





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