Portland to Portland

Only 3 months since my last post. Not too bad!

When I last wrote we were days from heading to Boston to see our favorite pod-casters, Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette of  UhhYeahDude. We went and it was hilarious.  After the show we waited in too long of a line to meet them and get this photo taken:

This photo would ultimately land in the hands of Nic and Sarah, who introduced us to the podcast. 8-18-12 is their wedding date.  Jonathan was possibly the sweatiest man I have ever seen.

The rest of July was mainly spent working. Lots of tacos were sold. Lots of booze was sold. Plants were planted, tended and harvested. Things were taken out of boxes and put on shelves. In late July the farm interns hosted a 'Southern Comfort' dinner party. Fried chicken and frito pie were both served. Brought me right back to Texas.
  

Mark in his Southern finery

Me working on some fried chicken

August 10th began with us waking up super early, dropping Maggie off at the farm and driving to Boston.  We made it to Boston in plenty of time and took a cab to the airport to catch our flight to Portland. Alas, as we were waiting for our flight it started storming outside and as the plane we were supposed to get on was landing, it got struck by lightening!  They delayed the flight to check for mechanical issues and about an hour later completely canceled the flight. I spent the next 2 hours on the phone trying to get us on a flight to Portland. I finally managed to secure a flight leaving at 6pm the next day.  This meant that instead of spending our 5th anniversary in Portland, wandering around the farmers market and eating amazing food, we would instead spend the day wandering around Chelsea, MA.  I was pretty cranky about it, but at least the airline put us up in a hotel.  We finally made it to Portland at 11:45pm on the 11th. Our friend Rachel was out of town, but she was kind enough to let us stay at her place and pet her cute cat Chloe.

In Portland we walked a ton, ate even more, went to some of our old haunts, saw old friends and generally had a pretty great time.

One of my favorite trees on the walk to Mt. Tabor

Our buddy Devin and his super cute daughter Abigale!

Kelley and I outside of Byways. He came to breakfast with Mark, my folks and me.  Kelley and I lived next door to each other freshman year of college and it's always a treat to see him!

My parents arrived in Portland on Monday night and Mark cooked an awesome Salmon dinner. They stayed at Rachel's with us and then we drove out to the coast to spend a couple days at my dad's cousin's beach house.  At the coast we spent a lot of time eating seafood and playing games. We also took a nice, muddy hike on Cape Overlook and went to Oceanside and Manzanita beaches.

View of Cape Overlook

Look! We're at the ocean!

Mark planking Cape Overlook

Mark and Peggy at Manzanita beach.

Sunset view from the beach house.

Mmmm....dinner.

All winter and a good chunk of the summer, a large portion of Mark's downtime was spent embroidering two brown trout as a wedding present for Nic and Sarah.  Here is the finished product!

Finished product

 

After the coast my folks dropped us off at our respective bachelor/bachelorette parties and they spent the next two days on the Southern Coast, hanging out in Sand Dunes National Recreation Area.  

On Friday we arrived in Elkton and met up with so many friends!  It was the best friend reunion either of us had had in a long time.  Most everyone from our Portland days have scattered and all of a sudden we were back together again! Excitement ensued. The rehearsal dinner was a 'boil' which involves boiling sea food and root vegetables in a pot and then dumping it out on newspaper covered tables and just going for it. So good....

Sarah and Audrey

Alex and Katie

Elkton Sunset

Saturday was gorgeous. Not too hot, not too cold.  After breakfast at a local diner, Mark and I went to the wedding site to help with lights. In the early afternoon he was whisked away to go get ready with the other groomsmen and I relaxed at the campground (which was really Eric and Randi's (Sarah's best childhood friend) back yard. They were amazingly hospitable and it was so fun having all our friends in the same place).  My parents rolled back into town in time for the wedding and we all sat together to watch our wonderful friends tie the knot.  Nic and Sarah were the cutest. Sarah had a giant grin on her face during the whole ceremony, while Nic had a more subdued, yet equally ecstatic smile on his.  Mark looked handsome in his best man duds and all the bridesmaids were lovely.

The Happy Couple

We helped with those lights!

Cute friends!

The handsome best man.

It's official!

After the ceremony there was wine, beer, and hors d'oeuvres on the lower lawn, followed by a super tasty dinner consisting of a whole roasted pig with all the fixings. 

Mmmmm.....pig roast.

 Their wedding and reception were held at Bradley Vineyards and I can't imagine a lovelier setting for them to be married.  After dinner there were speeches, cake, a bonfire and dancing, followed by an after party at the campground. Fun was had by all.

After the post-wedding brunch the next day we said our goodbyes and piled into Katie and Alex's rental car with Rachel and Mikal and road tripped back up to Portland.  We stayed at Rachel's for the next few days and had a great time. Lots of walking, eating and drinking happened.  The day before we left to head back to Vermont, Nic and Sarah came up to Portland to start their honeymoon and we got to spend a good part of Tuesday with them, again, eating and drinking.  If only we all lived closer to each other!

Devin, Mark and Mikal on the Hawthorne Bridge

 On Wednesday we left bright and early in the morning to catch our 6:30 am flight back to Boston. We made it back without a hitch and rolled back into our driveway before 10 pm.  Neither the farm nor the co-op fell apart while we were away, so that was a relief and relieved some of the guilt for leaving during such a busy time of year.

Once home, we got fully into the trials and tribulations of trying to buy a house.  Right before we left for Oregon we were informed that we had been turned down for a loan, so we left for our trip kind of assuming that we wouldn't be buying a house. Once back, however, our loan officer started pulling some strings and moving some numbers around and after a few weeks of going back and forth between excitement over getting a loan and despair over not getting a loan, we got one!  A week after finally being approved, we signed the papers on September 20th to officially own our own house and little piece of land in Walden, VT. Our house is a little 2 bedroom cape built in the 1920's. It's on 3.5 acres. About 1.5 acres are cleared and the rest is a piece of woods that climbs up the hillside and a marshy area just past the lawn.

The view from the corner of our yard.

Home Sweet Home!

 It is a great space and we've already hosted an event, 'The new 2nd Annual Hardwick Area Chili Cook-Off!"  Seven chilies were entered and right around 30 people came to eat, vote, tour our new place and hang out by the bonfire out back. It was a lovely housewarming event and a nice beginning to our lives in our new home.  There is also an awesome cemetery about 1/4 mile down the road. Here's a couple shots from an afternoon walk.

Best friends!

Fall in the Kingdom

This grave is tucked way back in the cemetery, right near the woods line.

Hank. This photo has nothing to do with the cemetery. It's just cute.

A couple weeks ago I finally finished the quilt I had been working on for Johannah Skye. She is the daughter of our good friend Liza and was about the size of Mark's forearm in my last post.  Now she is 5 months old and doing all sorts of new exciting things that 5 month old kiddos do.  Here are a few shots of the quilt that took up most of my down time from March-October.  The piecing went quickly, it was the obsessive hand quilting that took up most of my time.

Owl quilt.

 These are a few of my favorite squares.

I especially love this one.

The lucky quilt recipient. She's a whole lot bigger than Mark's forearm now!

Oh yes, one last adventure was a quick trip to Portland, Maine with our good friends Jon and Amy.  The drive over was gorgeous with fall colors in their full glory. Day one was rainy, but perfect for eating tacos and thai food. We spent the night in a KOA Kabin (really, KOA, you have to spell everything with a K?) and the next day was clear so we got to go to the beach and then back to Portland for more wandering and eating. Good times in the "big" city!

Maggie found a Halloween costume in a Portland thrift store.

Just so everyone knows, we have a guest room and can't wait to have visitors!  Maybe by the time people make it up here, we'll even have a bed for ya'll to sleep in....

I also have to note that it's October 12th and it's currently snowing. Yikes!  Might be an early winter this year...at least it'll be pretty!

Finally!

Well, well, well. Looks like it's been nine months since my last post. Now the question is, do I catch up on the last 9 months, or just dive into the present?  Hmmm.....Perhaps a semi-quick 9-month recap followed by what we're up to now. Sound good? Great.

Since my last post we have taken two trips to NYC. Our first one was in October. The evening before we left, I had a miscarriage, so our trip was a somewhat subdued affair. Mark also got strep throat while we were down there, so it was kind of a downer. However, we did make it to Central Park and the Museum of Natural History, ate various ethnic foods and got to see our friends Katie, Alex and Eric as well as Adam and Emily who came up from DC for the night.

Central Park

Hall of Life at the museum

 November brought Mark back to seed packing at High Mowing Seeds while I continued on at the Co-op. In early November we helped our friend Dan make sausage from the 4 pigs he raised all summer. Here are a few choice shots.

Last year I peaced out after 10 minutes. This year I got right into the thick of it.

Pig heart

Maggie loves sausage parties.

Mark, Emma and Coco making it happen.

Thanksgiving week brought a visit from not 1, not 2  but 3 friends! Nic and Sarah flew in from Bozeman, MT and Katie bussed up from the big city for a week of fun, friends and eating. We managed to fit sausage into at least one meal a day. Yum!  We ended up eating three Thanksgiving dinners over the course of the week: Community Dinner is every single Thursday, including Thanksgiving, so that was dinner number one. Dinner number 2 came on Friday when we hosted Friendsgiving and then Claire and Drew hosted another Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Mmmm...

Sarah, Mark and Nic at Community Dinner Thanksgiving

Squishy face friends photo at Friendsgiving

At Friendsgiving there was discussion over whether you could swallow food upside down. Dan proved that you can.

Catan anyone?

Something else we did during Thanksgiving Fun Week (besides eat) was get way into Settlers of Catan. Way. At least one game was played a day. Or three.

On December 1st, I turned 29. I also started working for Caledonia Spirits and Winery  sampling out wine and spirits at liquor stores and markets around the state. It's a pretty sweet gig, which continues this summer. I get to go to Hardwick and Burlington Farmer's Markets and give people free samples of tasty booze.  Their gin is the best I've ever tasted and I'm not just saying that because I work there.  For my birthday we went to Nutty Steph's for chocolate and bacon Thursdays. Chocolate and bacon were both consumed in vast quantities. Mmmm....29 never tasted so good.

Maggie tries to pretend she doesn't love Hank, but she does.

 December brought a 10 day trip to Montana for the holidays. It was great to be back in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley, especially at such a fun filled time of year. Activities included a winter hike at Lake Como with the Goheen women, beer drinking at Jasper Miller's new brewery Higher Ground Brewing, hanging out at Chapter One, eating, hanging out with friends, more eating. As an added bonus, Nic and Sarah came for Christmas and got to participate in our annual Christmas Eve ravioli making and eating extravaganza! It was so nice to see them for not one, but two food centered holidays! When I'm out East I can forget how much I love the West, but being back quickly makes me remember. If only I could clone myself and live in multiple places I love at once. Maybe someday...

The lovely Lake Como

The lovely Goheen women: Morgan, Alysha and Sylvie

So many raviolis!

Family time! Peggy, Chels, Warren and Grandma Lois

Montana's version of shuffleboard. How close can you get your rock to the edge of the ice without sailing it into the river?

Uh oh. More Catan. This time with an ocean involved.

Dusty, Ives and me at Higher Ground.

Montana was awesome and it was sad to leave. But all good things must come to an end. And usually they lead to more good things. Like an awesome dress-up Formal/Feral New Year's Eve party in Vermont.  Dancing and mild debauchery occurred. What a way to ring in 2012.

Nothing says Happy New Year like pink sequins.

Welcome to 2012!

Winter in VT was pretty mellow. I did not try cross-country skiing again and I don't feel a bit bad about it.  I felt a little guilty while winter was happening, but looking back at it from a summer perspective, I don’t feel guilty at all.  Some people are made for outdoor winter sports and some are not. Instead I caught up on my reading, crafting and movie watching.

February brought another miscarriage at 6 ½ weeks, same as the first one. It threw us both into a bit of despair, but we haven’t given up hope.

Since July of 2011 we’ve been hosting Taco Tuesday at our house the last Tuesday of every month. Mark and I supply the hand-pressed corn tortillas and everyone else brings things to put on, in or next to a taco. In January we ran out of propane the day before taco night so we cooked all our tortillas on our woodstove. It was a good thing it was a cold night, cause it got real hot.  In February our theme was Taco Tattuesday and a friend of a friend came to give people tattoos. Mark, Emma and Coco all got tattoos.  Here is photo evidence.

Mark getting a manatee dreaming about a taco

Emma getting a candleholder

Coco getting a double handled saw

In March, Hank got a nasty cut on his ear and we ended up having to put a makeshift cone on his head so he would stop messing with it. He was really upset about the whole thing, but it provided hours of entertainment for Mark and me. For some reason, Hank didn’t think he could lift his head when the cone was on, so he spent 3 days slinking around the house, cone brushing against the floor, pitifully meowing. Luckily, he healed up just fine and has only had to wear the cone once since, for an unrelated, but equally gross injury.

Poor Hank.

Late March brought some unseasonably warm weather which was welcomed, but with skepticism. For a week people ran around in shorts and t-shirts, started seedlings and considered going swimming. After the week of warmth, it dropped back below freezing, but it was a nice reminder that summer is definitely coming!

Mmmmm...meat.

 In April we took a trip to NYC and Washington DC to visit friends. It was so nice to be in places where leaves were on trees and flowers were blooming. In DC we made much use of the city bike program. You swipe your credit card and can rent a bike for 3 days for $15. If you’re on it for under half an hour its free, so we spent our time in DC biking around in ½ hour spurts, taking in the sights and soaking up the 70 degree weather.  We also went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. There was an amazing exhibit of x-rayed fish skeletons.

Mark at the Capitol

Winter? Not in DC.

Me in front of the Supreme Court. This one's for you, Ma.

Mark and Adam holding up the White House

Fish Skeleton!

3 fish skeletons! Piranhas?

I want to ride my bicycle!

Cherry blossoms peaked early this year. Good for us, not as good for the cherry blossom festival.

While we were in NYC, Mark turned 30! Pretty grown up. We spent the day doing New York things, like riding the Staten Island Ferry, drinking beers at McSeourley’s Irish pub (the oldest Irish Pub in NYC), and eating lots of NY style pizza.  

Lady Liberty

This is what 30 looks like.

Katie and friends at McSeourley's

On April 14^th we had an amazing scavenger hunt birthday party for Mark.  It was similar to our previous summer’s scavenger hunt, but at this one the wild card was planking instead of taking off your pants, which means I can show some photos!

Maggie was really excited about Mark's birthday scavenger hunt.

Peeps in dryers.

Jim planking a beaver dam.

Vacuum someone's hair.

Two planks and a yoga pose.

Human Pyramid with strangers.

High-fiving strangers in an eating establishment. These people were stoked to be in the scavenger hunt.

Merry go round? How about merry go plank.

Not only do we still have payphones in Vermont, but you can plank them.

Pineapple upside down birthday cake.

In April we also helped our friends Lindsay and Jonah inoculate hundreds of logs with shiitake mushrooms. Pretty fun way to spend a Saturday!

 April 30^th brought my Dad’s 62^nd birthday and the birth of our friends Liza and David’s baby, Johannah Skye Sprout y McKay. She is adorable and I’m so glad she’s part of our Vermont community.  A few weeks before her birth, we had a ‘blessing way’ for Liza. I had never heard of a blessing way before coming to Vermont. It’s a lovely gathering of women (and sometimes men) where we all celebrate the mother and the transition into motherhood. Lots of singing was involved and also telling Liza how much we love her. I broke down a bit during that part. If my first pregnancy had come to term, I would have had a baby 6 weeks after Liza, so I was busy feeling a lot of feelings during her blessing way.  However, even though there have been bouts of sadness, it’s been really fun watching baby Johannah get bigger and bigger and more responsive as the days go by.

Johannah in Mark's arms, a few days after she was born.

 May 1^st brought a surprise. When we woke up in the morning, our car was gone! It had been stolen from right out of our driveway while we were sleeping. To be fair, the keys were in the car, but they were hidden under the seat, so it was quite a shock that someone actually bothered to look for them.  Especially since we drive a 1995 Subaru station wagon. We assumed that it was gone for good, but 2 weeks later the cops found it in a parking lot in Johnson, a mere 30 minutes away. And it still worked! Meanwhile, a friend of a friend gave us a free, 1995 Subaru station wagon, so now we are the proud owners of not 1, but 2 1995 station wagons, one green, one blue, both mostly functional.

Also in May I started working at the Galaxy Bookshop, our local independent bookstore. Linda Ramsdall, the owner, is good friends with Russ Lawrence, the former owner of Chapter One Bookstore.  It’s so great being back in a bookstore, reading books, talking about books, thinking about books…really it’s the perfect job for me. I only work Thursdays from 3-7, but just doing that is wonderful.  Linda and Sandy are great and it’s lots of fun.

May also brought the launch of our Farmer’s Market Taco stand, ‘Tacos Con Gusto.’  Mark and Matt had one gig last year, at a funny music festival, but this year they have hit the ground running. We have a space at the Montpelier Farmer’s Market the third Saturday of every month and we’re fill ins at the Waitsfield Market, but so far we have been peddling tacos every weekend. It’s been really fun watching Mark in a “kitchen” setting and I always love serving people tasty food. It’s a lot of work, but totally worth it. And we’re even making a little bit of money! 

Our first day of Tacos Con Gusto at the Montpelier Farmer's Market

Peggy and Warren came for a visit in late May/early June. We didn’t get up to much, but it was so nice having them here. Since they were here on the last Tuesday of the month, they got to attend Taco Tuesday 10. It turned out to be our biggest Taco Tuesday ever with 52 people attending! Our biggest one before that was 32 people. They were also here for Hardwick’s Memorial Day events, including a parade and sustainability fair. We ate lots of good food, home cooked and restaurant. We also went canoeing at Caspian Lake, attended a Memorial Day BBQ at Merin and Beth’s, spent time in Montpelier and did a little gardening.  Their trip was too short, but it was great to have them here. I feel lucky to have such awesome parents.

Family

Canoeing at Lake Caspian

 June has been busy. Between the co-op, tacos, Caledonia Spirits and the Galaxy, as well as all the fun things that happen in the summer in VT, we’ve been pretty busy. Mark started back at Harvest Hill after our 2^nd New York trip and he’s been loving it. This year’s interns are doing a great job and Mark always thrives when he gets to work outdoors. Maggie also loves summer, because it means she gets to go back to the farm too. One of the interns, Carey, has a young dog named Lokie and when Maggie isn’t napping under the Subaru, she’s busy chasing Lokie or biting his neck. She comes home and immediately crashes on the couch. Pretty cute.

Future adventures include a trip to Boston this weekend to see our favorite podcasters Seth Romatelli and Jonathen Laroquette of Uhh YeahDude live at the Paradise Rock Club. We’re real excited.  In August our dear friends Nic and Sarah are tying the knot in Elkton, Oregon on August 18^th. Mark is the best man and we’re using their wedding as an excuse to make a 12 day trip out to Oregon. August 11^th is our 5^th wedding anniversary and we’ll be in Portland, OR to celebrate. I can’t wait to head to Oregon to see our adorable friends get married, as well as the awesome friend reunion that will go down at their wedding. We’ll also get to see my folks at the wedding and then spend some time with them on the Oregon Coast before heading back to VT.

Another potential adventure? Home ownership.  We’ll keep ya’ll updated.

Love to everyone. And enjoy the summer!