Kelly Point

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!

Three Pools

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.

Sunday Parkways

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!

Night Flights

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’s Wedding

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..

Time with our Nieces

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…

Sarah and Danny’s Wedding

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…

BD & Carrie's Wedding

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.

Grand Ronde River Trip

This Memorial Day Emily, Leo and I went on a great Grand Ronde River rafting trip with Jason and his dog Arby, Adam, Slaughter, Josh, Alina and their dog Baya.  This was a 45 mile river trip from Minam, OR to Troy, OR that we would take 4 leisurely days to raft.  We had three boats, Josh & Alina with Baya and Jason and Arby on an oar boat and Emily, Brian and I on a rental boat from PSU.  Despite a little rain at the start we had a great trip.  Read on…

Saddle Mountain

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…

Wahclella Falls

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…

Advanced Inpho Training and Visiting Family

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.

Sauvie Island

Today Emily and I drove out to Sauvie Island to check it out.  This is an island created by the split of the Willamette River into the Multnomah Channel and it’s entrance into the Columbia River.  It’s small at about 26,000 acres and has only about 1200 residents but it is less than 10 miles from our house.  We had heard that the island contains a lot of wildlife, especially birds, so we decided to drive out in the winter when the leaves aren’t on the trees to obstruct our views.  Read on…

ASPRS Columbia Chapter Meeting

Emily and I went to the Annual Columbia Chapter of ASPRS meeting at the Bridgeport Brewery.   It was the first meeting I’ve attended and I thought it might be dry and just a bunch of industry talk but instead it was really great.  There were general announcements of office position changes but then we had an amazing presentation by a master brewer about the history of beer styles.  We got to sample some amazing beers and also get a walk-through of the entire brewery.  

Emily and I were able to meet a bunch of people in the remote sensing industry and had a great meal as well.  I definitely plan on getting more involved in the chapter going forward, especially since one of their main focuses will be the emerging drone acquisition market.  

Skinning up the Palmer with Leo

Chris Holm had come up the night before to hang out with us and catch up.  We were all excited about doing a bit of skiing on Sunday and were planning on heading to Cooper Spur to skin up and ski some of the Eliot glacier on the North side of the mountain where we figured there might be some snow.  Read on…

4T Trail without the Tram

I had encouraged Emily throughout the week to plan something for the weekend.  She came up with us trying out the 4T trail in Portland.  Working downtown I see a lot of the city but with her out at Clatskanie she doesn’t get to explore the city much so we thought it would be a fun day.  Unfortunately, because the loop requires riding a Train, Trolley, Tram, Leo couldn’t join us, although we saw a lot of dogs on the Trail portion of the 4T.  Read on…

Smith Rock and Biking in Bend

This weekend was supposed to be our Annual Maiden Hut backcountry ski weekend but with this winter being one of the worst snow seasons in Oregon’s history it wasn’t possible.  In fact we could have hiked in to the hut but where’s the fun in that?  So far this year Ski Bowl only opened for about a week and Willamette Pass and Hoodoo haven’t opened (they would never open this season - I wrote this in July :).  So yeah, I had pretty much written off any snow activity for the year.  Read on….

Syncline - Up Maui to Hidden Valley Down - Mountain Biking the Gorge

This Sunday Conrad joined Emily and I with his new mountain bike for our first venture to the Syncline Trail system around Coyote Wall on the Washington side of the Gorge.  This area is incredibly beautiful and popular with hikers but we didn't know until recently that it was also an amazing biking area just east of the Cascade Crest that usually gets decent weather while its pouring in Portland.  Read on...

Herman Creek on a Rainy Day

 After taking a the first weekend of the year to catch up on "life things" around the house we decided to get away this weekend for something.  The original plan had been to head to Bend to visit Aaron Hartz but unfortunately that got cancelled and the weather didn't appear to pleasant for skiing anyway.  Instead, we headed off into the Gorge on a rainy Sunday to check out the Herman Creek to Casey Creek trail.  Read on...

New Years Eve 2014

Danielle, Scott, Tim, Lindsay and Colin drove up from Corvallis to join us for New Years in Portland.  I was a bit burnt out from 3 days of work straight off a late flight home on Sunday so I wasn't too pumped up to organize anything for anyone.  We started the night off with pizza and a bunch of shots and then headed to Alberta Street Pub with Tim behind the wheel (sober).  Unfortunately, Tim, not being used to medians all over Portland drove the Prius over a huge curb, blowing the front tire.  He felt pretty bad about it but it gave Emily and I a good excuse to put her winter studded tires on later that weekend.  Read on...

Christmas 2014

I'll be honest, I was not looking forward to going to Upstate NY for Christmas.  I had promised my mom to help her downsize her home but I was not prepared for what I encountered.  I'm not going to write a lot about it except that her house is now 6,000 pounds lighter of what my mom's therapist and I call "static" and it is now ready for contractors to work on.   Read on...

Certifications

This year was a big year for me at my job.  2014 was pretty much dedicated to boosting my career and position at Quantum Spatial.  From the start of the year I took on massive projects, the size of which our group hadn't seen before.  I worked long hours over the spring after our honeymoon, often staying till 8pm and during a few crunch weeks as late as 11pm for multiple nights.  I remoted in almost daily to keep processes running and often worked from home over the weekends.  By working in this manner I was able to save the company nearly $500,000 in budget savings.   Read on...

Thanksgiving 2014

This year Emily and I joined Scott and Danielle for Thanksgiving in the San Juan Islands of Washington.  We stayed in a wonderful rental home on Lummi Island and enjoyed wonderful food, eagle and owl sightings, and great company for 5 days.  Read on to find out more...

SCUBA Diving, Mushrooms, Clams and Coastal Good Times

This weekend Emily and I spent a terrific weekend on the coast with Holm, Paris, and some friends from work including Drew, Lennie, and even Chris Miwa along with a bunch of others.  We were invited along the weekend before by Chris and Paris.  We stayed with James Lawonn at his place in Netards.  James took over Lindsay Marcella's job on the coast when she left and we had met him before at an Easter Party at their place earlier in the year.  I definitely recognized him as soon as we saw him.  We spent the weekend SCUBA diving, raking clams, mushroom picking and clamming and feasted on all that we successfully hunted and gathered.  Read on for more photos.

Halloween 2014

I’ve been so burnt out at work with a big project that I wasn’t too stoked to worry about dressing up for Halloween.  Thankfully, my terrific wife helped me out by picking out a costume for me, well, mostly just a wig as I used my own beard to make a mustache.  I didn’t dress up for work this year but when we got home I did get dressed up Scott’s Party in Corvallis that we drove down for.  Emily fashioned herself into a terrific scarecrow while I did my best Ron Swanson Impression.  Read on...

Ellie's 8th Birthday

I just had a wonderful weekend with my daughter for her 8th birthday.  Last year I made a promise to her that I would visit her on her birthday each year.  Finally, without graduate school and with a steady job and can now afford the trips and get her a nice present each year.  She really is growing up fast!  Let’s see, highlights… she can cartwheel with the best of them, she is getting pretty good at violin, and she’s quite the climber and gymnast!

Larch Mountain

Today Emily and I took Leo out to Larch Mountain for an afternoon hike.  It’s not too far from Portland and we hadn’t been up it before.  We started our hike at the base of the mountain to create a loop up and around the crater of the ancient volcano.  For the most part it was pretty uninteresting until we got to the top.  We did get to see a lot of mushrooms and it seemed like everyone around us was walking out with bags of Chanterelles but of course we didn’t have any luck finding any!  

Cape Horn

Today Emily and I headed out to Cape Horn on the Washington side of the Columbia River.  This area is closed in the spring due to Falcons nesting along the cliffs so for a beautiful fall day it was the perfect hike nearby for us to check out.  We got there early afternoon and it turned out to be a pretty hot day for October.  Read on...