This weekend Emily I decided to not lose any more time of the summer due to the lawsuit and decided to venture out of cell phone reach of the lawyers to do a hike around the north side of Mount Hood with Leo. We decided on an out and back from the Top Spur Trailhead to Elk Cove for the night. Read on...
With the lawsuit in full swing against us and a lot of stress in my life Emily and I decided we needed to get out of the house with Leo so we headed to the dog park at the Sandy River Delta to take Leo for a long walk. I had literally been living at home ready to answer any needs the lawyers had for a while and I needed to get out. We walked far out onto the delta and actually waded out through some shallow water to an island on the Columbia River. Leo of course had a great time and Emily was as supportive as ever for me. Both her and her parents realized what I couldn't at the time - the lawsuit was a bunch of horse shit and would eventually go away. The night before was a low point in my life but thankfully my friends and future co-workers were incredibly supportive of me and I felt better about things in the morning.
This week Kevin and Alexa made it back to Oregon for Kevin's PhD defense and everyone was super excited to see them and Ronan. When they got to Portland they stayed with us for a night before heading down to Corvallis. Their visit was right in the middle of the ugly QSI lawsuit against us which was super unfortunate but it didn't stop us from having a good time with them and our friends in Corvallis who still work for that horrid company. Read on
Today Emily and I decided to float the Sandy River from Oxbow Park to the Lewis and Clark State Park on the Columbia. I guess the entire 7.5 mile float would take about 5 hours and with us getting to Oxbow at 2pm I new it would be cutting it close to float the river and then drive back to Oxbow to pick up the other Prius by the 8:40 sunset gate closure. The water was super low and very slow. We barely felt like we were moving at all! It was a beautiful day though and we saw lots of wildlife including eagles, tons of ospreys fishing, a deer and plenty of ducks. 
When we passed Dabney Park at around 7 I new we still had about an hour and half left so I needed to speed things up. This involved me pushing Emily along on the inflatable mattress she was riding, running my feet along the river bottom to keep us moving in the slow current, as well as kicking and breast-stroke kicking us along the way. It was exhausting and I got very tired, and… very chaffed. When we got to the takeout it was 8:25pm and I sprinted to get the Prius and raced down the road to Oxbow Park. We got to the park at 8:50pm and thankfully, they let us in to get the car which also thankfully didn’t have a citation! I think next time we’ll plan a full 8 hour day for this float to play it safe!
My wonderful wife helped me pick up a new lens for me for my 36th birthday this past week. For all those photographers out there, it’s a 150-600mm lens. This full-frame lens on my ASP-C size sensor means an amazing 800mm zoom with my Nikon D7000 DSLR. To test it out we headed to find some birds on Sauvie Island. 
Despite a brief patch of hard rain we were able to find many test subjects and I had a great time testing it out. Not much to write about here so I’ll add just a couple good photos. For the rest check out my Facebook album. Thanks love, can’t wait to use this during our upcoming Africa Safari!
Today was our 2 year wedding anniversary. As usual we wanted to head out to Hood River to pick some berries and get some dinner but this year we invited Eric along. We chose not to tell him it was our special day because we knew he wouldn’t go! On the way we stopped to explore Oneonta Gorge as well. Read on…
Today Tom, Banjo, and Eric joined us for a hike up Hamilton Mountain. Tom had been on the hike before but not Eric so we thought it was a great place close by to check out and get some sunshine and exercise the dogs. Read on…
After an exhausting and hot hike up Elks and Kings Mountains in the Tillamook Forest of the Coast Range Emily and I were absolutely starving so we were super excited to get to Tillamook and find the Old Oregon Smokehouse along 101 just north of the city. We had a great dinner of clam chowder and an oyster po’boy sandwich. The owners even closed up and left for drinks while we were still there! From there it was an hour drive down the coast to our secret beach location where we would camp for the next two wonderful nights. Read on…
With Fourth of July weekend upon us and temperatures predicted to reach 100 degrees in Portland once again, we decided it was time to head to the coast with Leo to stay cool and enjoy the ocean breezes. We also wanted to get some exercise in so we planned a 10 mile loop hike over Elk Mountain and Kings Mountain in the Tillamook Forest of the Coast Range. It turned out nearly to be too much for poor Leo. Read on…
After the complete failure of driving to Three Pools along Opal Creek on Saturday to only find it overrun with drunk idiots with glass bottles everywhere we decided to stay local and find some water for Leo to cool off in. We first tried a couple beaches along the Columbia but dogs were forbidden so we instead made our way out to Kelly Point, which is the convergence of the Willamette River into the Columbia just north of the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland. 
We spent the next hour or so walking around the point of land with Leo and “encouraging” him into the water to cool off. He’s not a big fan of swimming so much of it was me carrying him out to the water and having him swim back to Emily at the beach. We saw a couple wakeboard boats on the river and one was anchored right off the beach… certainly gave Emily and I a few ideas! So… after a weekend of failure after failure, we were able to finally get Leo cooled off in a river!
Emily and I today drove 2 hours from Portland to check out these Pools along Opal Creek.. what a mistake. Took these photos in 5 minutes, then walked away and drove all the way home. = FAIL.
This Sunday was the North Portland Sunday Parkways so Emily, my mom, and I joined Tom, Andrea, Everett, Eric, Arley, Katie, and a few others for the afternoon bike ride stopping at various North Portland Parks throughout the early afternoon. It was Everett’s first time out on a bike ride so it was a big day for the Spaul family. 
Highlights included a dog wearing doggles on a double decker bike, the same little girl as last year on her unicycle and a stop at a winery out of a guys garage!
Tonight my mom had talked us into joining her at the Alberta Rose Theatre for an aerial acrobatics show entitled Sea of Dreams. Chris Holm was coming up to visit so he joined us as well. At first the story line was absolutely crazy and the dorky overacting almost had me ready to leave my seat for the whiskey bar down the road, but then… the acrobatics started with some great EDM music and I decided to stick around. 
Overall it was a pretty cool performance, but I wish they had completely just left out the dialogue between changing out the rope systems and just played good music to fill the time instead.
Ashley, one of Emily’s best friends from high school was having her wedding on Martha’s Vineyard at a Yacht Club. To be completely honest Emily and I were expecting this to be a “big money wedding” because lobster was on menu, but to our surprise it was incredibly planned, amazingly beautiful, and probably even cost less than our wedding! And it couldn’t have been at a better location! Read on..
Between weddings Emily and I got to finally really spend some quality time with our new nieces. We got to go with Sophie to her morning book reading, as well as a morning music class where all the children played with toys and sang various songs. Sophie is still very much attached to Jen at all times but slowly she opened up to both Emily and I when we got to play with her at their house. Read on…
Emily and I flew home for a week and a day for two East Coast weddings. The first was Danny and Sarah in Connecticut and the second was Ashley and Matt on Martha’s Vineyard. In between we had a very relaxing week with Emily’s family, our nieces, and even a long overdue visit with Kenny in Boston. Read on…
This weekend Emily and I drove out to BD and Carrie’s wedding reception at Silver Falls. They had a very small ceremony of just family and super close friends but opened up the campground to all their friends for a night of drinking, music, dancing, and camping overnight. Emily and I always enjoy it when we have the occasion to spend time with all our Corvallis friends in one place. The only Portland people that were at the reception were Ryan and Tim who have been long time friends with Brian. 
We spent the afternoon drinking great beer, playing washers that Colin had made for the new married couple and a very cool “big-sized” game involving pulling sticks out of a basket while trying not to let the balls above them fall down - no idea the name of it. BD and Carrie had hired “Wild Hogs in the Woods” to play and they were amazing. No surprise that Jen had a little too much to drink and passed out behind some bushes, and no surprise that after the band ended the party continued around a camp fire down by the stream late into the night. Everyone seemed to have a great time and the food was amazing. On Sunday Em and I left a little early to go spend the afternoon with Chris and Paris as it would be the last time we might see them in Corvallis with them moving to Moscow, ID.
It had come time for Emily and I to take a break for ourselves and do a hike that my mom couldn’t manage with us. Emily came home early in the morning from Carrie’s bachelorette party at the Edgefield McMenamins and we packed up Leo and headed out to the Coast Range to climb Saddle Mountain again. The first time we did it was a few years ago in the clouds with Jason, Jenn, Scott and Daniel so we were excited to see the views on a nice crisp, clear day. Read on…
Today Emily and I took my mom and Leo out to the Gorge for a hike up Wahclella Falls. The whole hike is just over 2 miles round trip with less than 400 feet of gain so we thought it would be a good first step for my mom. read on…
This week I headed to the Trimble office in Westminster, CO for an Advanced Inpho Training course. At QSI I was recently promoted to lead up the Advanced Imaging Team in the Portland office and I felt it would serve the team well if I were to get some more advanced training in the software that we use to process the imagery. There’s not much to say about the training except that I ate well, actually was able to feel snow fall on me this winter, and got to spend the weekend after hanging out with my totally awesome aunt and uncle Roger and Catherine and my cousins Cherie, Adam and Asia. Always a fun time catching up with them! Oh… and I got to see some bunny rabbits around the pretty cool hotel I stayed at - Drury Inn, which provided two drinks tickets for me each night of my stay.
