Larson Wedding

This Saturday our friends Sarah and Adam got married at the “Grange Dance Hall” (Cody and Nicole’s Barn next to their house in Shedd, OR).  We drove down in the afternoon after we had a semi-successful tag sale in our driveway in the morning trying to get rid of as much as we could before our move to Portland.  Their wedding was at 7 so we had time to meet up with Chris and Paris before hand to check out their new house on Kings Ave and also get some food at Cafe Yum in downtown Corvallis before heading over in the Prius.  

Their wedding was very beautiful in a barn that was protected from the rain that evening and was lit by literally hundreds of candles.  The ceremony was very nice and lasted about 20 minutes with a lot of emotions.  Out of the wedding party I knew Adams friend Bill and out of the Bridesmaides I knew Stacy and Nicole Younger.  We saw Ben and Tiah and their boys as well as Ian, Colleen, Martin, Brian Carrington and of course Cody with Jesse who was an amazing host as was Nicole.  They had about 5 long tables of deserts for after the wedding and a yummy shrimp gumbo that I helped myself too.  I was a bit hungover from Josh’s backyard party the night before in Portland so it was great to get a bunch of good food in me.  

Throughout the evening there were musicians on stage playing guitar and singing, including a few Chris Holm classics and I finally got to see the Grange Hall Drifters play (Adam’s band with Bill).  They were really amazing and their songs were a lot of fun.  I set up the DSLR to record video from a table below so I could send Sarah and Adam the video later as a surprise as I think I was the only one recording.  Adam is an amazing performer and song writer (as is Holm) and I hope to see them play again someday.  We were both so happy for the two of them as they make a great couple and I have no doubt their marriage will last and little ones will be on the way soon I bet!

A Bosses Birthday

Just a post with a few photos of what we all did for our boss’s birthday at work.  It certainly took a while but it seemed like everyone contributed to blowing up a few balloons.  Matt was certainly surprised when he got to the office.  Watching him push his way through them to his desk was pretty fun.  They stayed there for a few more days until he began blowing them into the office with a fan.  

Ryan put tacks in a cardboard poster tube (his “boom stick”) and made quick work of killing them at our end of the office.  But this was after he made “balloon angels” in Matt’s room and I swam through a wall of them myself.  Pretty fun, and cool that we work in an office where this kind of stuff is not only ok, but sometimes encouraged….

Easter 2014

This Easter Emily and I traveled down to Corvallis to have dinner and drinks with friends at Tim and Lindsay’s new home in South Corvallis.  They have a great place with a big backyard and plenty of garage space for all their gear.  They were graciously continuing on the tradition that Kev and Alexa had started years ago and the majority of us all came dressed in our Sunday best.  Unfortunately, due to work obligations we were missing Scooter and Jason and Danielle was in California on vacation.  

The food was amazing and we all had a great time catching up over drinks.  It was really great to see BD & Carrie, a rare appearance by Doug an Pete, and others whom we hadn’t seen in almost half a year.  After dinner we continued our night over at the Maple Lounge (BD & Carrie’s decked-out garage) with Jenn who was super tired from being up crazy early planting trees in Eugene for her new full time job.  She was a trooper and we ended up heading back to their place around 1am I think.  

In the morning I awoke to both girls laughing at me.  Apparently, as I usually do at Jason’s, I got up for the bathroom and ended up heading into the wrong bedroom and climbing into bed with the wrong woman!  ha!  As Jen tells it, “Jon climbed into bed and I said, “Ellinger??”, and he said, “Krebs??” and then started chuckling to himself”….. That’s when I climbed slowly out of bed and wandered back to the right room and correct wife all while Jenn was giggling behind me.  In the morning I woke up and had no recollection of the event at all!  When Jason got home a few hours later after we had taken the dogs for a nice walk in the park he got a kick out of the story as well… :)  It was a great weekend with friends for sure with a story I’m sure will be remembered….

Mount Hood Summit Ski Descent

This past week Matt and Mike D from the office invited me to join them on a climb of Mt. Hood with a hopefully ski descent from the top.  The weather looked amazing for the weekend and I didn’t have any other plans so I was happy to join, yet scared about how out of shape I currently am.  Matt also wanted to get up at 4am which both Mike and I thought was a tad bit early but because Emily and made an offer on a house in North Portland I was hoping that I might be able to get down in time to go see the open house with Emily.  The climb and the views were epic even though the ski descent was terrible and dangerous.  Click the title to read on…

Yakima Canyon Weekend

This weekend the forecast for Seattle down to San Francisco called for heavy rain so Emily and I did the only logical thing we could come up with and went East over the Cascades to the high desert of Washington in search of sunshine.  I had been put in over 60 hours of work the previous week and was nearing 40 hours by Thursday so after I got my delivery out Friday I left work early so that we could pack up and take off.  Click the title to read on….

Hamilton Mountain & Beacon Rock with Leo

After a very rainy Saturday spent looking at a few houses and touring neighborhoods Emily and I were ready to take Leo out for a hike on Sunday.  The weather cleared a bit with only a few showers and we ended up hiking a loop trail that proved to be one of my favorites in the Portland area.  We saw some great waterfalls, our first spring flowers, a ton of great views from some crazy terrain and even had time to finally run up Beacon Rock for some views of the Columbia River and surprising elk herd in the Gorge below.  Click the title to read on…

Lazy weekend of Sun and Drinks

Well, not completely lazy as I did get out for about 6 miles of walking with Leo during the sunshine on Saturday…. On Friday Em and I joined Layne and Rob at Fire on the Mountain for some yummy wings.  On Saturday I ended up driving out to Troutdale with Leo to explore some urban parks.  Saturday night was a shit show of a bar crawl for Eric and Anna Li’s dual birthday and Sunday was spent recovering… click the title to read the quick details if you care…

Klickitat Trail & Swale Canyon Bike Ride

On Saturday Emily and I decided to make the best of the nice warm weather and headed out past Hood River for some high desert mountain biking on the Washington side of the Columbia River.  We shuttled cars and biked a 31 mile “Rail-to-Trail” loop down Swale Canyon and then the Klickitat River to Lyle, WA.  It was a beautiful day and we saw lots of wildlife.  Click the title to read on….

Roller Derby Night with Friends

On Saturday after interviewing a Real Estate agent and stocking up on groceries, Emily and I joined Katie, Arley and Ryan for a night at the Roller Derby.  We met them first at the Oaks Bottom Public House in Southeast Portland for some Totchos (Tots with Nacho toppings) good beer, and great clam chowder.  I had wings which I hadn’t had in a long time and the mess was worth it!  After a few pints we headed over to the Oaks Bottom Fairgrounds for the Roller derby.  To our surprise it was mostly girls that seemed no older than Jr. High… Apparently this was the finals for them, which is why the tickets were $20 each.  The rules of Roller Derby are pretty unique and it was certainly “interesting” watching the young girls push each other around and knock each other over on old school roller-skates.  The tall boy cans of PBR and Girl Scout cookies for sale there helped.

We watched a match and a half and Emily and I kept losing to Katie who seemed to be good at guessing the winning team (I owed her a beer on the way out).  Since it was still pretty early and there was a Timbers game on TV we headed into town to watch the Timbers pull off an amazing last second game tying goal before heading to Life of Pie for some late night pizza.  The Margharetta  pizza was the best I’d had in a long time.  Although it was an odd night watching young roller derby girls I did get a roll-by high five from “Jill the Ripper” and it was a lot of fun hanging out with Arley, Katie and Ryan as usual.

Maiden Peak Backcountry Ski Trip

This weekend Emily and I wanted to get out of dodge so we joined Colleen and others for a backcountry ski tour around the backside of Willamette Pass Ski Area.  Because we were passing Corvallis on the way through we also used the opportunity to stop for dinner with Holm, Paris, Jason and Jen and then stayed over with Jen and Jason.  It was a long tour so we left Leo for a little vacation with Aunt Anna Li before heading south.  To read more and see more photos click the title to read on….

Tom Dick Backcountry Skiing with Leo

Today Emily and I had a great day of backcountry skiing with Leo in the Tom Dick backcountry.  It was great to be back on the same trails as last year when we first introduced him to chasing us on skis. We had great views of Mt. Hood and got a few quick turns in on some very heavy, wet snow before tearing down the trails with Leo at the tails of my skis.  He was thoroughly exhausted and slept soundly all evening.  Click the title to read on....

Clam Chowder Blind Tasting Test

When I woke up I didn’t have any plans for us for the day but since Emily had Friday off she had done some thinking and suggested we go check out a clam chowder competition.  This pleased me in two ways - 1. Emily never really puts any effort into suggesting weekend activities for us although I often suggest she think about it, and 2. I love clam chowder!  So, we headed down to the Lompoc Brewery and got in line at about 1pm.  The event was supposed to last until 4pm but when we arrived they had already run out of one of the 12 chowders there.  By the time we were done enjoying and rating our 11 small cups of chowder the even was closed because they had run out!  We were happy to have arrived when we did.  We each voted for our favorite chowder and handed in our ballots before leaving happy with full stomachs. 

Ryan Over To Cook Us Dinner

Tonight Ryan Anderson finally made the long journey up to our place to cook dinner for us.  He made the same delicious pasta meal with fresh slipper bread that I had eaten with him at his place earlier in the fall.  Arley and Katie also joined us for dinner.  Because of traffic and where we live nobody arrived at our place until nearly 8pm so our planned World War Z movie didn’t happen but it was great to have an amazing freshly prepared dinner with our new Portland friends!

Mount Hood Meadows

Today Emily and ventured to Mt. Hood Meadows for the first time in about 7 years!  The last time either of us had been there was when she came to visit me before moving out here.  For all the years of bashing Meadows for the number of people there, we actually had a great day of skiing and despite it being the first Saturday in months with fresh snow and ton of people the lift lines moved fast and we got a lot of runs in.  

Unfortunately, most of the really good terrain was still closed due to lack of cover and we found ourselves skiing the same trails over and over again, not having knowledge of where the sweet spots where like we do at SkiBowl.  We also learned our lesson that you can’t wax your skis the night before and expect to scrape the wax off the next day in the cold weather at the resort.. it was awful… had to re-wax them again….

Superbowl 2014 - Seattle Wins!

Today Emily and I invited a bunch of people over to our place to watch the Superbowl with us but as usual because of where we live not many showed up.  Eric bailed because of a family member health scare but Arley and Katie came over with some delicious football shaped brownies.  Emily and I had bought plenty of drinks and we also had some wings and chips to share.  The game itself was a blowout as Seattle crushed Denver who looked like a High School team in comparison.  It was nice to hang out with Arley and Katie and we appreciated them making the drive to spend the afternoon with us. 

Romona Falls with Leo

Today Emily and I ventured to Mount Hood with Leo for an afternoon of hiking.  We had intended on climbing a small peak out of Lolo Pass but there was too much snow.  Instead we found ourselves hiking along the Sandy River towards Romona Falls in just under a foot of fresh snow.  We had an interesting stream crossing with Leo and got to see a very cool waterfall.  Leo was beat tired at the end of the hike and so were we actually... Need to get in shape... Click the title to read about our hike...

Lower Deschutes Trail Biking Disaster

Went out for what I thought would be a relaxing bike ride along the Deschutes River today and came back exhausted 3 hours after dark with two flat tires.  The ride was beautiful and the cold weather was perfect for riding along the river.  I saw a bunch of historical items along the way and an old homestead but I did not expect the path to be littered with sharp thorns... Click the title to read all about this epic bike ride for me....

Sandy Ridge Biking with the Holm brothers

Today Emily and I joined Chris and his brother Eric for a ride at Sandy Ridge.  We hadn’t been there in a couple years and had heard about all the trail work so were looking forward to checking it out.  It certainly felt a little strange heading up towards Mt. Hood in January with our bikes instead of our skis but this has been the worst ski season in decades with Ski Bowl not evening opening yet.  The weather was beautiful and we biked a really big loop along the ridge and down to start.  We even tried to help a lost dog whose owner had totally ditched him at the top of the descent.  He followed us for a bit but then refused to go any further, worriedly looking for his owner… sad, but the dog kept to the trails and followed people so we knew he’d find his way at some point.  At the bottom Em was a little tired so headed back down to the truck while I continued on with the brothers for another couple rounds.  It definitely felt great to be back on my bike again. 

After the ride Eric took off for home and his wife and twins while Chris joined us at Calamity Janes for large burgers and even larger beers to catch up with us.  He had a great trip to Colorado with Paris and their relationship was going well.  Emily and I told him a bunch about our trip and told him to keep an eye on Facebook for photos.  It sucks living 1.5 hours from Holm but we are glad we get to see him about once a month when he drives north to join us for adventures.

Blazers vs. Nuggets

Tonight Emily and I joined Ben, Tiah, Darren, Jonathan, Jennifer, Donald and a couple others for a Blazers Game.  I left work at 5pm and walked over the steel bridge to meet them all at Red Robin for some food before heading to the game and had them order for me while I was on the walk over.  Emily of course had to fight traffic and find parking so she joined us a few hours later at the start of the game.  We were in the nose bleed section but the game turned out to be really close with us taking a 5 point lead with only about 5 seconds left to play.  It was great to catch up with Ben and Tiah and to find out they are expecting another child - the last according to Ben.  We heard they are going to be moving into a new house soon so we look forward to their housewarming party.  

Our Honeymoon - Day 25 - Flight Home

With great sadness this was our last morning in Costa Rica before our flight home to Portland through Dalles.  Both of us were pretty bummed leaving such an amazing place in the world.  We had our adventure and put our bodies to the test in Patagonia and in Costa Rica we had seen more wildlife in a week than we'd seen in the last 10 years.  Thankfully our travel was very smooth back to the states and we arrived with all of our luggage and all of our memories.  This was truly a trip we will never forget and the best honeymoon either of us could have imagined.  I love my wife so much!  Click the title to read on and see a few more pics of our amazing resort in Manuel Antonio.  

Our Honeymoon - Day 24 - Manuel Antonio National Park & Transfer to San Jose

After such a wonderful day relaxing and seeing all the wildlife at our resort I was almost tempted to not get up early and go see Manuel Antonio National Park but I reminded myself I may only be here once so I urged myself out of bed without waking Emily and headed off at 6am.  It was worth the effort as I saw lots of wildlife in the park and some beautiful beaches.  I even arrived back at the resort with enough time to relax one more time at the beach with Emily before we had to pack up and head to San Jose for our return flight the next day.  Click the title to read on...

Our Honeymoon - Day 23 - Enjoying our resort and a couples massage

Today was simply a day to relax for both of us.  Neither of us left the resort although I did spend some time walking up and down the steep hill of the resort looking for wildlife.  We enjoyed an hour long couples massage and had a wonderful dinner after yet another great sunset.  One of the highlights of the trip for me was when my patience paid off and I was able to capture some photos and video of a sloth actually moving about and eating in a tree directly directly above our heads at one of the resort pools. Click the title to read on....

Our Honeymoon - Day 22- Walk to Maunel Antonio and enjoying our resort

Today was a relaxing day for Emily who was feeling a bit tired after all our adventures.  She remained at the beach resort while I took a short walk into Manuel Antonio to check out the town because I was feeling restless at the beach.  On my walk I spotted the cutest sloth sleeping on coconuts in the trees and also spotted numerous other animals.  When I returned, sweaty, to the resort I joined my wife on the beach for another amazing sunset and some delicious cold run & cokes on the beach.  Click the title to read on...

Our Honeymoon - Day 21 - Monteverde to Manuel Antonio

Today we were transported from Santa Elena to Manuel Antonio where we would relax at a ritzy resort for the remainder of our Costa Rican experience.  Along the way we spotted howler monkeys, a pair of toucans and stopped to see tons of crocodiles along a river bank below the Panamerican Highway. When we got to our resort we settled in and then headed towards the private beach to relax and enjoy a beautiful sunset over the Pacific.  Click the title to read on...

Our Honeymoon - Day 20 - Monteverde Cloud Forest and Frog Pond

Today after a wonderful guided tour of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve where we spotted our first sloth, Emily and I went on our own hike up to the Continental Divide and back.  We didn't see many more animals and it rained the whole time but I think it was part of the experience since we were in a cloud forest after all.  We stopped for a quick tour of the "Frog Pond" on the way back to our lodge to check out the various species in the region but it wasn't as cool because they were in enclosures instead of us seeing them in their natural habitat.  Once again we got a visit by our cute Coati friend as we relaxed for the afternoon at our our wonderful private lodge.  Click the title to read on...

Our Honeymoon - Day 19 - Jeep Boat Jeep to Monteverde

Today we were transported via "Jeep-Boat-Jeep" from La Fortuna up into the mountains of Monteverde to Santa Elena where we would stay for the next couple nights while exploring the cloud forests there.  It was an interesting transport across Lake Arenal and bumpy steep ride up into the mountains but the views along the way were fantastic and we even got to see a parrot and pet duck along the way.  The Rainbow Valley Lodge where we stayed was amazing and we made a coati friend before our very interesting night tour of a nearby preserve.  Click the title to read on....

Our Honeymoon - Day 18 - Cano Negro Boat Tour

We had a boat tour today of the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge which runs along the border of Nicaragua.  We weren't sure what to expect but it turned out to be the wildlife highlight of our Costa Rica trip.  We saw more wildlife in a half mile stretch of the Rio Frio than anywhere else in the country. I think I took over 500 photos on just this one tour.  We even got to see the extremely rare albino Howler Monkey!  Click the title to read on....

Our Honeymoon - Day 17 - Sky Adventures Guided Nature Walk, Suspended Bridges, Tram & Zip Line

Today we had our first guided wildlife tour in Costa Rica in the jungle around the massive Arenal Volcano.  Our fantastic guide pointed out our first monkeys and taught us about the local vegetation. We walked across our first hanging bridges and experienced our last bit of adventure on our trip by zip lining at Sky Adventure.  From the zip lines we had great views of Lake Arenal and of the forest below us.  We were even back to our hostel in time to relax in hammocks and grab some drinks.  Click the title to read on...

Our Honeymoon - Day 16 - Rafting the Pacaure River

Today we woke early for our rafting trip down the Pacuare River on the Caribbean side of the country. It was an amazing trip filled with great rapids, waterfalls and our first Costa Rican jungle experience. We didn't see too many animals because we were too busy steering through rapids.  We had a great group in our raft so our guide took us down the gnarliest rapids.  After a great day on the river the rafting company then provided transportation for us to La Fortuna.