The Adventures of Dave, Lindsay, Cora and Edie

We should have been concerned when it poured for 18+ hours yesterday but we weren't. We just went about our day and snuggled in for the night listening to the rain outside our window. Unfortunately, this morning we woke to find that our basement had been flooded with around 5-6 inches of water at some point during the night and then the water had slowly drained away. The culprit was a 'overwhelmed' storm drain in the driveway. Everything in the basement, which is where our guest bedroom, TV room, garage and laundry/storage room are, had floated to a new location during the flood. Thankfully, we were able to salvage most of our photo albums (there are photos drying all over the house currently), books and electronics downstairs. And after spending the day at the laundry mat, we got most of our clothes and extra bedding dry. The landlord showed up to help and decided the only option was to rip out the carpet and padding immediately so the floors could dry and the carpet could...

So you may have heard... we got pummeled with snow for over a week. It was nuts. Having moved from Montana, we were totally excited to have some fluffy white stuff for Christmas. It always makes the holiday genuine. Well, after a day or two the inches really started stacking up and then we realized, Western Oregon is ill-equipped with snow plows. None of the neighborhood streets saw a plow for the duration of "Arctic Blast 2008". It was less than a foot, but when the temp isn't super low, the snow turns into something between mashed potatoes and wet cement. No matter who you were or what you were driving, you were struggling to get around. It's sad to say, but we've never been so glad to see the rain... (Thanks to our friends who came into town before Christmas and had to deal with PDX being shut down for 24 hours while they waited to get home for the holiday.)

We were up at Mt. Hood a few weekends ago and headed up to Timberline Lodge, the only place on the mountain that had any snow to speak of. Peeka thought it was fantastic and ran around digging her nose in it. She's definitely a Montana girl! Our newest family member, Newman, wasn't such a fan. My mom and step-dad recently brought home a miniature schnauzer puppy that is small but full of attitude. However, even with the lovely holiday coat my parents bought him, he couldn't stop shivering in the snow. Not so tough now, little guy. Thought you'd enjoy photos of the dogs at Mt. Hood. After missing last year's epic ski season entirely, we are praying for snow and hoping to hit the mountain sometime in 2008. Mother nature may have something else in mind when Oregon has beautiful bluebird days in December. Something is not right....

Some photos from our big night out in Oregon City on Halloween. Plus, a few photos from our trip to the Sauvie's Island pumpkin patch a few weeks back with our nieces and nephews. We did it all - corn maze, riding on the flat bed out to pick our perfect pumpkin and sipping on fresh apple cider. That's why the Fall season is my favorite!

Tomorrow it will be exactly 1 year ago that we left for our 6 months of travel. Our first stop was Eugene, OR on Halloween to trick or treat with our nieces and nephews. This year won't be quite as exciting or memorable because after waiting to see if any kids show up at our rental house begging for candy, we'll be hitting the streets of Oregon City in our makeshift costumes for a "big night out on the town." It's amazing how quickly life changes.

After years of talking about it, we finally made a trip to Alaska. It's definitely all it's cracked up to be. Seriously huge, full of wildlife, with monstrous mountains, glaciers, and rivers. It's certainly the smallest we've ever felt. Not only is the landscape immeasurable, but when you're standing on your two feet out in the open, you're the smallest mammal around. Alaska's great like that. We spent about 5 days bussing and hiking around Denali National Park and Preserve... and the weather was great. Perfect for hiking and sleeping in a tent. No bugs and no crowds. (The tent part was interesting though... somehow Dave grabbed tent poles belonging to a different tent. But we figured it out and made it work.) Mt. McKinley peeked out a few times for us and we were amazed every time. A truly spectacular mountain. (I've marked a photo so you can get an idea of the scale.) The video shows us trudging through a little Alaskan bush on our unsuccessful ascen...

Now that it has been several months since we came back from our trip, we've reluctantly decided to get back to work... which we quickly realized was totally lame. However, if you absolutely have to work for a living, we both ended up in pretty good positions. Lindsay is starting her 3rd week as the Donor Relations Officer for Boys and Girls Aid - www.boysandgirlsaid.org - a great non-profit that does foster care, adoption, temporary shelters for youth and a mentoring program called Mentor Portland. She's enjoying being back in the non-profit world but still adjusting to a full-time work schedule after working only part-time or not at all for the last year (yikes!). She's missing the world of conservation and environmental issues but hopes to fulfill that passion through some volunteer work in the near future. Dave has had an intense summer keeping up with school and two part time jobs. One job was working with Lindsay's Dad selling automotive parts around Oregon and ...