The Country Mice Visit the City: Day 2-4

here are the rest of our pictures from our fabulous trip to NYC. They are possibly slightly out of order, but close!

Late morning brunch with mimosas before heading into the city. 

A trip to the Natural History Museum - complete with a star show (which I'll admit I slept through. so cozy and dark!)

Then off to Central Park for a picnic. it was beautiful!

Walking around the high end Upper East Side (I think I'm remembering that correctly)

Sarabeth's! We did not eat here though. 

On one of the mornings we met Cousin K's good friend at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens - and then on to brunch. 

Thor at the cheese shop eyeing all the delicious mustards.

This is the most amazing cheese we have ever had. Incredible! The truffle/cinnamon coating on the exterior is so unique!

A quick stop for the best gravy cheese fries in NYC!

Then onto the grocery to peruse our dinner options. 

But we ended up going to try 'the best' slice in NYC at DiFara's Pizza and we were NOT disappointed!  Here's the man himself still making pies after something like 40-years. This pizza was amazing. The wait is ridiculous-but if you like pizza it is not to be missed!

On our last day the weather was beautiful and warm and we took a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge.  I can only imagine what it is like in the summer time with more tourists - it was already packed when we were there in May!

On our way to the airport we needed lunch! So we took a small detour to grab a sandwich (corned beef on rye, I believe) at Katz's Delicatessen. SO GOOD. yummmm. another delicious NYC classic treat!

Brooklyn Bridge - out of order!

We really milked our time. After lunch we decided we had time for one last stop, but only if Daphne didn't park and Thor and I ran! So we ducked into Grand Central Station to check it out before racing to the airport. The ceiling/architecture is stunning!

A great trip to New York!

Belated NYC pics from our Fabulous Trip to Daphne: Day 1

Terrible! These pics are almost two months late. We had such a great time visiting Daphne - and we packed so much into the first day!

First stop: bagels! Toasted sesame with scallion cream cheese...mmmm. we may have eaten here six times in four days!

Then off for our first ride on the subway! Thank goodness we had Daphne to lead the way. Thor and I were bumbling around like country bumpkins. 

First view of the city: the buildings extend for miles!

There are cute little grocery stores peppered all over the city. This one had a fabulous chocolate selection 

Into Little Italy: of course we had to sample some classic treats!

Then onto 'the best' icecream in New York: VanLeeuwen's! They had unique flavors like pistachio and strawberry balsamic and it was excellent!

And what is a trip to NYC without a traditional slice of pie! (are you seeing a theme here? really this should be 'The Tingey's Eat Manhattan by Storm') 

After fortifying ourselves properly we thought it best to get some exercise and headed over to the West Side to go to The Highline and take a walk. it's basically an elevated park on an old railway. It's beautiful! Definitely go if you visit NYC - it was our favorite place!

There is some beautiful street art in this part of town. 

After that it was getting late do we headed off towards Times Square to see it at night. It was crazy! Pretty sure I only need to see that once - so many people! 

From there we headed to a proper late night dinner around 10-10:30 pm. The best part of visiting the East Coast is that I could function on West Coast time the whole trip and stay up 'late' (1am) which was really only 10pm my time. Score!

65 Miles for Mom's 65th Birthday

For moms 65 birthday she decided to ride 65 miles - so we picked a course and off we went! We chose to ride west of Portland instead of out in the gorge so we'd have less climbing (smart!). It was a great, great day. 

Mom and our chauffeur for the day - Thor. Thor had to work that Sunday, but he graciously drove us out to our start in Beaverton AND then came out to pick us up in Vernonia when we were done. Champ!

Mom and I suited up and ready to roll out. 

Looking fast!

By midday the early morning fog had burned off and we had beautiful, blue skies. 

Managed to snag one selfie without going off the road to prove we were both on our bikes and having fun despite having taken a wrong turn that added about 8 miles onto our route (which ended up being a very good thing in the end).

Still smiling and riding strong around mile 40!

Here we are enjoying well deserved margaritas at the end of our ride waiting for Thor to come and pick us up. 

  we don't have any pictures from the final stretch because the Banks to Vernonia trail is not very picturesque. Originally we were planning to ride it out and back to get the full 65 miles in, but because of our earlier detour we were able to skip that - which was good - because neither of us wanted to ride it back the whole way! 

Mom was saying how she wasn't sure about keeping up the tradition of riding 5 more miles every significant birthday (70 on 70, 75 on 75, etc.) - but I said that's ok! we can just switch to sky diving like ex-President Bush to mark those birthdays! :) Who's in in 5 years?!

Oakridge: Single track for Miles

I realize I'm veeeery behind in posting. I got backlogged after we went to visit Daphne in NYC and I had soooo many great pictures I got overwhelmed with organizing all of them. I'm going to try and get caught up! 

No posting doesn't mean we haven't been busy though. :) This past weekend we rolled out of town to Oakridge for a little camping and mtn biking and it was fantastic. it rained last week so the trails were in perfect shape. I'll blitz through captioning these pics. 

Campsite #1: where laea ate a stick and started hacking/dry heaving at 10pm and we thought we were going to have to drive to Eugene in the middle of the night. crazy dog. thankfully she settled down.

Day 1 ride: Alpine-tire mountain-Cloverpatch- Connector-Alpine. great loop! About 30 miles total and 5,500' of climbing. These pics are not in day order, but you can see how beautiful the area and trail are!

I think this section on tire mountain might be thors favorite stretch of trail in Oregon 

The wildflowers were out in force!

Sunset from our campsite on Day 2 - near the resevoir. 

And a view in the morning. 

Sunday we were both tired, so we slept in (9:30!) and then decided to just do a paddleboard in the sun. We even got Laea on a board! Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks! She balanced up there for about an hour before we headed back to shore to do some swimming, and then rolled back to Portland midday. It was nice and relaxing overall!

Mothers Day Brunch: Treating a Mom in Style

We had impromptu Mothers Day brunch at our house on Saturday - and boy do we know how to treat a mom right?! First we put her to work helping make breakfast, then we made her help clean up and wash dishes, and to put a little extra 'you're special' icing on the cake I even polished off her Mother's Day mimosa for her because I thought it was Thors! 😄 Hah!

But it's not as bad as that! We actually had a great time (I think Mom will say so too if you ask her...probably). Photo evidence follows. 

The only downside of the morning: William wasn't feeling well. We were originally planning on going out for brunch, but he was feeling so poorly on the drive to breakfast that we decided to scrap that plan and make breakfast at our place instead. 

Buuuut - that meant a quick trip to the grocery, and then putting our free help (aka Mom) to work in the kitchen!

But she was in good company - AND she got to pick what we made. 

Thor slaving away on his infamous lemon ricotta pancake batter (except we made waffles this time).

We managed to pull together a nice table setting for Mom - complete with Mothers Day hootch. (just kidding - that's a scoby for kombucha that mom has been wanting me to harvest for her).

Bacon and chai tea with coconut milk - yum!

Waffles and strawberries. 

Success! Mom toasting a successful morning (before I stole her mimosa. an accident, I promise!)

New York! New York!

We just got back from visiting Daphne in New York and we had an amazing visit! I have a hope that I'll find time to get my phone connected to a computer and write a longer post with lots of pictures...but we all know that might take ages! So in the meantime here's a wee taste: Thor, Daphne and I on our final day in New York walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. We had amazing weather our final day! Thank you Daphne for being such an excellent tour guide and hostess! (I think Thor and I would still be scratching our heads at the first subway transfer if she hadn't led the way!)

A Poorly Documented Trip to Seattle!

We travelled to Seattle last weekend to attend a conference (Thor) and visit friends. I took very few pictures! But here we go:

The view from our hotel room - tres chic!

Thor caught me riding my mtn bike into the elevator. We 'snuck' them in - but not really because I DID call ahead and ask if we could bring bikes in...I just left out the mountain part. ;)

We had a great time visiting Kathryn, Stella and Aunt Susanna and I failed to take a single picture! Oops. Anyhow - Kathryn made a delicious soup, Aunt Susanna brought an epic loaf of bread that I think I are half of, and Stella rocked her new pink Converse high tops. 

Saturday we went to visit Becky and Josh and their new son, Oliver. 

Such a snuggly cutie!

Oliver on the amazing quilt that mom made for him, and the cardigan I knit in Timbers colors so he can cheer in style!

Isn't this the best cross stitch for a baby's room?

Sunday we headed out to Duthie Hill to do a technique lesson with our good friend, Emily. SO fun - but also no pictures. Then home to practice cornering on the street outside our house!