Thor's 2nd Pair of Pajama Pants!

I didn't waste any time making Thor a second pair of pajama pants after he said he liked his owl pants! I found this great trout fabric - and whipped up a second pair - the stitching is all done in bright green thread and they turned out just as well as the first pair!

Local Backyard Summer Feast!

The weather has finally gotten nice here in Portland! It's been warm & sunny all week long - and Thor and I celebrated this evening with our first salad straight from our garden and a delicious burger with meat from our Emerson Dell cow. Yum!

Anna is Moving to the Mainland Today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I am VERRRRRRY excited because Anna is moving from Hawaii back to the mainland! I am not sure if she is on her flight yet or not - but I've been all sorts of keyed up and excited the whole morning because I know she is moving today! She's flying into Seattle, so I won't get to see her immediately, but potentially I will get to see her again this summer! Instead of every two years or so - hurray!

Short Track #1 - June 21

Monday night was the first short track race of the year - and both Thor and I raced. This was Thor's first race in his new Tireless Velo jersey - doesn't he look sharp? ;) And - the most exciting news of the post - Thor got 4th in his category!

For some reason these pictures are out of order - and Blogger isn't letting me rearrange right now - so you'll just have to bear with my out of order pics! I raced in the Pro/Cat 1 women's category for the first time ever, and it went pretty well for my first time out! I was definitely dead last (unfortunately NOT a copy cat performance of cousin Erica's Pro category debut. Nice job on the 3rd place!), but I was racing better than I ever did last year (standing up on hills, trying to sprint (or at least accelerate) out of corners, etc.) AND I didn't get lapped by every Pro/Cat 1 man on the course - so that was a mini victory in itself!

Here I am - following speedy Karen Goritsky of Tireless Velo around the course!

I tried hard to take pictures of Thor during his race - but he just wouldn't cooperate! =) (okay, okay - the reality is I'm terrible with a camera!) In every picture I took of Thor on Monday night he is blocked by other riders - here is an example of my pathetic sports photography skills: Thor is directly behind the rider in the middle with the white stripes on his shoulders - you can barely see Thor's arms sticking out on either side. Nice job, Sarah!

Thor and I pre-race!

Racing With the Ladies - PIR - 6/14

Thanks to Andrew for this great shot of all of us who raced. From the left: Sara Fletcher, Me, Amy Lebus, Michelle Lichtenfels, Kelly Schneider, Anne Davis-Usher, Jenn Levo & Justine Saudan!

Dug out my OBRA race numbers for the first time this year (and for a race that's not really a road race) and headed out to PIR to ride on Monday night with a large contingent of BTV ladies! I had a great time - the weather was lovely (despite the mind-numbing head wind!) - and it felt really good to get out there and ride hard (don't hold me to that - that statement does NOT mean I will be starting regular intervals any time soon. Hah!)

North Umpqua Weekend

This past weekend we headed down to the area near Roseburg to do some boating and biking on the North Umpqua River. I have procrastinated all week on getting this pictures up, and not it's LATE Sunday of the following week - so captions are going to be short and sweet!

It was our friend, Matt's, birthday weekend - so he headed down early on Friday to snag everyone campsites at the Boulder Flat campground on the Umpqua. Thor, Becky & I drove down Friday night - and we had a wonderful campsite right on the river - it was so peaceful to sleep to the sound of the rushing water.

Our view from the campsite.

Looking into our campsite - the 'ol reliable Stevenson tent, bikes & a boat!

Becky - cooking an amazing hash brown/cheese breakfast feast on Thor's B-day camp stove.

Loaded up and rolling out to the ride! We had the 'Dread and Terror' segment of the trail on our agenda for the day.

A shot along the ride - we had gorgeous, sunny weather - such welcome break from the dreary spring we've been having in Portland.

Me - riding up onto a bridge. What you can't see are all the jumbly rocks on the other side that I had to make it over in order to get on the bridge - I was pretty stoked not to fall over!

On an overlook along the trail.

Becky and I have a great ability to take VERY bad pictures together. I know the one before this was pretty good - but what are we doing here? (especially me. what face am I making here?)
Our original plan was to ride 'Dread and Terror', the 'Hotspring' segment, and then 'Deer Leap' (for a total of about 35 miles). But about 200 yards into the Hotspring segment Matt took a header over the handlebars (he's totally okay) - and cracked his helmet AND his bike frame! It's hard to see in these next two shots - but both his top tube and down tube are cracked. Very lame - but we were thankful that Matt was fine - so we called it a day and headed down to the river for a beer and a swim!

Our lovely swimming hole.

We had already planned to get some boating in over the weekend - but with Matt's frame malfunction it sealed the deal, and Sunday was devoted to river pursuits. Becky had never been packrafting before - so we were excited to get her out on the water. We ran the Boulder Flat to Horseshoe Bend section of the North Umpqua - there were a couple fun class III's in there - but nothing too crazy.

Becky & I before putting in. Still dry. =)

The next couple of pics are of me - one just in an easier stretch of water - and then running Cardiac Arrest - which is a pretty chill class III towards the bottom of the segment. Sheri sent a Witchcraft to us to try out - which is a new Alpacka Raft prototype specially designed for whitewater -it was great! The new back rest is awesome - and it's really stable going through rough water, you feel a little less 'cork-like.'

Rain, rain, go away!

It has been so wet in Portland this past week. By Friday we had already surpassed the average rainfall for the month of June (and for those of you not good with the calendar, Friday was the 4th!). I am tired of riding my bike in the rain - tired of gardening in the rain - tired of looking outside and seeing gray skies with nothing but RAIN!

Yesterday we got a brief break from the rain - and it was glorious! Thor and I got up bright and early (that would be 6 a.m. on a Saturday) and headed out to Mt. Hood to go mtn.biking with some friends. We rode 8-Mile, Knebel Springs and Dog River trail and they were all in PERFECT condition! No mud at all, and none of the super fine dust you get later in the summer as the trails dry out. The other people we rode with had to leave early to head back to Portland, so Thor & I puttered down to Hood River to hang out for awhile and just have a lazy afternoon. We stopped into Double Mountain Brewery for lunch (of course - since they make the best pizza ever!), and then puttered up and down the street poking into various shops - something Thor & I haven't done in ages. It felt like it was about 80 degrees, and it was soooo welcome after the dreary cold weather we have been having.

This morning we woke up to pouring rain, again. The weather report for today called for a 'chance of showers' - Thor and I have decided it should have read something more like 'Deluges of biblical proportions likely.' It has been nice - because we ended up having a lazy morning and going out to breakfast instead of getting up to go mtn. biking again, but - enough with the rain.

Thor and I were going to attempt something this weekend that we haven't done since college - 3 parties in 3 nights. Annnnnd - the verdict is that our 30's (or in my case, almost 30's) caught up with us and we only made 2 out of 3 and just couldn't motivate for a Sunday evening bbq in the rain. Laundry, work week lunch prep, and general cleaning tugged at us and we just felt like we needed an evening at home to get caught up.

I just wrapped up making a batch of granola - yum! We used to eat this growing up all the time - and it's basically just a bit batch of toasted ingredients:

• Oats
• Slivered Almonds
• Chopped Pecans
• Pepitas
• Sunflower Seeds
• Sesame Seeds
• Unsweetened Coconut
• Flax Seed Meal
• Brown Sugar
• Cinnamon

I usually toast up the oats first in a deep saucepan - then pour them into a bowl. Then I tackle the nuts, pepitas and sunflower seeds until the pepitas are popping. At that point I mix the oats back in and then add the coconut, sesame seeds and flax seed meal (since they all need less time to toast). Once everything is nice and toasted I toss in the brown sugar and cinnamon to mix in and coat everything - then the granola has just a touch of sweetness to it.

Piggy Cat

Most of you know my mom's cat, Lo, - or have at least heard of his meyowlerly ways in the morning when he wants to be fed (the cat is food obsessed!). Every morning I prepare Laea's breakfast while she is out at the park with Thor - and this morning I put down both Lo & Laea's food at the same time. Lo came streaking around the corner and devoured his bowl of food - and then turned right around and started crunching away at Laea's dog kibble! So funny - I decided there wasn't any reason to chase him off - the nuggets are so big that he probably only made it through about 5 or 6 of them before Laea got home and chased him away.