PDX Happenings

I realize I’ve been seriously lagging behind on my posts.  There are always other things to do it seems, besides writing blog posts.  So I apologize for that.  If you are reading this now, I appreciate you checking back to see if there is anything new.

Well, we have a two year old on our hands!  We had a fun birthday party for Hadley at Sound Roots School of Modern Music with all her little friends.  Hadley’s party was also attended by her two favorite people in the world, Scott and Jenn.  Jenn was able to spend the weekend up in Portland helping us get ready for the party and Scott traveled all night to make it back from a hockey game in Eastern Washington to attend.  It was a lot of fun, and I took lots of pictures.

It’s been a lot of fun to have a two year old.  Yes, there are tantrums bigger than life at times but even those provide laughter and entertainment for mom and dad.  Hadley is very independent and “Haddy do it!” can be heard on many occasions on any given day.  She loves to play hide and seek, laugh, dance and sing songs.  We are still working on going on the potty (she will successfully go about once a day), and she is gaining new language every day.  It’s fun to hear what words she picks up on and what she learns at daycare.  In fact, the other day she exclaimed “oh dear!” when she dropped something.  Just don’t ask her to say “frog” because it resembles another four letter F-word when it exits her mouth.  I’ve attached a bunch of pictures of our big girl for your viewing pleasure.  Also, here is just a random video I took last night of sheer cuteness.

You will see what I mean by the title of this post once you watch the video.  I took this video a couple of weeks ago when we started working on counting.  She did pretty well, and it’s fun to watch her learn.  She can almost count to 10 by herself now, although she usually misses the number 5.  Toddlers are amazing aren’t they?

We had plans to see Santa Claus this morning with our friends Jeff, Sofia and their daughter Ana.  We had been preparing for it quite a bit because although Hadley thoroughly enjoyed meeting the fat man last year, we didn’t know how this year would go.  Toddlers are a whole different story and Hadley definitely has ideas about what she does and does not want to do.  There is no forcing this strong willed child.

We started out by doing a bit of a “dry run” Saturday evening.  We decided to bring Hadley to the city square that night to see the Christmas Tree on display.  I’m not sure how tall it is, but it has to be at least 60 feet tall (you can see me in the white hat, and Hadley standing underneath it).  It is lit with energy efficient LED lights and is absolutely beautiful.  Hadley LOVES looking at all the Christmas lights this season.  On the drive home each evening we pass houses lit up with lights and she will clap and ask for more.  We thought the downtown tree would be a big hit.  We got there and she seemed to be less then impressed.  Since the mall is only a block away, we decided to walk around the mall and let Hadley get some energy out since it started to rain outside.

John and I thought it would be a good idea to take her to the Santa area so she could check him out and see what she was getting into.  All week long we would ask her, “do you want to see Santa?” and she would enthusiastically answer “yes!”.  We knew that she really had no idea what she was saying but she pointed Santa out wherever she saw a man that was wearing a Santa hat, or a picture of him somewhere.  She seemed very interested when we saw him, she even tried to walk up to him while there was a couple of other children on his lap.

Sunday morning proved to be another story.  We waited in line at Macy’s to see Santa first thing in the morning.  Hadley loved the Santaland that was in the Macy’s lower level.  She saw all the reindeer and made reindeer noises for us, which happen to be a “roooaaarr” in Hadley’s world.  By the time we got up to see Santa, Hadley was a bit more reserved.  She decided that there was no way she was going to sit on his lap, hence the family picture above.  John was able to get some video after the picture was taken.  She did end up saying “Thank you Santa”, but when he tried to hold her hand, she freaked.  Our Santa visit was over, and honestly it went as well as could be expected with a nearly two year old.  She did a really great job, and John and I were pleased as punch.

John started taking the video just as Santa asked Hadley if she liked Dollies or babies (which, by the way, Hadley is obsessed with babies…..and no, I’m not having another one yet).  She was responding by saying “no babies.  no babies!”

Enjoy the video and from our family to yours we hope you’re having a very Merry Christmas season!

First you buy the tree (notice the Clark Griswold pose)

John (aka Clark Griswold)

And you need to clean

And then you decorate the tree

Christmas is here!

I always thought I hated pork chops because the ones we have made have always turned out dry, and rubbery.  Well, we were making two mistakes…wrong recipe and wrong cut.  I learned that the thin cut pork chops will ALWAYS be rubbery, so buy at least a 3/4″ inch cut, but in my opinion the 1″ is optimal.

Here is my go-to pork chop recipe, drenched in Onion Gravy.  It may have only 3 ingredients (salt, pepper, flour and oil for frying don’t count), but trust me, they are deliciously simple.

Pork Chops and Onion Gravy

• 4 pork chops, 1″ thick
• vegetable oil
• salt and pepper
• flour for dredging
• 2 onions, sliced
• 2 cups chicken stock

Rinse and pat dry pork chops.  Season both sides with salt and pepper.  Dredge in flour.  Heat a couple of tablespoons vegetable oil in a fry pan with a lid.  Fry pork chops in pan until golden on each side, about 3 minutes a side.  Take pork chops out and set aside.  Add onions to drippings in pan and saute for a couple of minutes.  Add a couple tablespoons of the leftover flour from dredging and toast flour with onions for about 2 minutes.  Slowly pour in chicken broth, and let the mixture come to a boil.  Reduce heat to low.  Nestle pork chops back in onion gravy, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until pork chops are tender and cooked through and gravy is thickened.

If your looking for a perfect comfort food meal, serve with a baked potato and the famous Green Bean Hotdish.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, we have an amazing daycare and are so lucky that Hadley gets to spend her days there.  They do an annual “lantern walk” at Halloween time and we were able to attend this year.  We didn’t go last year because Hadley was so young, but this year, she really dug it.

The event took part in Fernhill Park in Northeast Portland.  We arrived at 5:30 and enjoyed the hot apple cider and treats they had laid out for us.  We oohed and aahed at the lovely lanterns the older children have spent the last week making at school decorating reused jars of various sizes.  Hadley’s class is a little too young yet to be making the crafts, but there were plenty of lanterns to go around.

After some visiting they lit all the lanterns and each child got to choose one to carry on the path.  The path was lit by sand filled bags with tea lights in them.  As the sun set in the park, it was just beautiful.  Hadley’s music teacher was there and helped her pick out the perfect lantern for her journey through the park.

We walked the path with lanterns in hand and Hadley got to trick or treat along the way.  She collected a glow stick, 2 stickers, a whistle, a tattoo, an apple, a small sheep figure and a pine cone.  She loved walking by herself like a big girl through the woods and even though she wouldn’t say “trick or treat”, she said thank you to everyone who gave her treats.

It was truly a lovely evening and John and I are so grateful to be a part of such a wonderful community of parents.  Of course I took of pictures, you can look at them here.

This post should have been written days ago, but this house has been a hotbed of sick to say the least.  It all started with John, Hadley and I all coming down with the flu 2 weeks ago.  We survived, barely.  Between the three of us, we barely held it together, but hopefully that means we are now immune to whatever was ailing us.  I was better but then somehow caught a cold last week and tonight I am finally feeling the best I’ve felt in 2 weeks.  Hadley also had a second bout and got sent home earlier in the week after vomiting at daycare.  But she is also on the mend, and seems to be healthy as well.

In between the waves of illness we  were all healthy enough to venture out of the house and make it to the Portland Nursery’s Apple Festival.  It started at 10:00 on Saturday morning so we figured we would leave the house early enough to get there when they opened to avoid the crowd.  Clearly, there were a lot of other Portlanders that had the same idea.  Although the morning was a gorgeous fall day, there was rain in the forecast.

We made it through the gate shortly after 10:0o and each of us were handed a bag of freshly popped popcorn to snack on while we perused a couple different booths that were set up with various vendors, tastings and demonstrations.

I don’t think Hadley had ever had popcorn before, but she loved it.  We took a break sitting on the Adirondack chairs they had out by their beautiful fall displays and snacked.  I was excited to go to the apple tasting tent so I was planning my move over there.  The word was that they had 60 different varieties of NW grown apples and pears to taste.  They also had many varieties on hand for sale for just .89/pound.

Right next to the chairs we were sitting on they had an old wooden cider press and samples of freshly pressed apple cider.  We lined up and got a cup to quench our thirst after the delicious popcorn.  Hadley really had no interest in the old

Ahhhh refreshing!

cider pressing machine itself but was adamantly requesting another sample of the delicious nectar that was produced.

After we enjoyed our cider we made it over to the apple tent where we found giant wooden crates filled with apples to pick out and bring home.  Unfortunately the Honeycrisp bin (my very favorite apple) was looking a little low and picked over, so we settled for 1o pounds of Braeburns, which is my second favorite apple variety.

We couldn’t avoid the music that was coming from the tent just beyond the bins of apples, so we wandered over in time to watch a couple of songs by a fun local band.  Hadley enjoyed bopping to the music and watching the other little kids dance.  Just then, we heard thunder and looked to the west to see dark skies.  It’s not very often that you hear thunder in our part of Oregon, since lightening isn’t a common occurrence.  In fact, they count the lightening strikes when it is present and report it on the evening news.  We decided to try to make our way to the apple tasting tent before it started raining.

Apple tasting is one of my favorite memories I have as a kid.  My dad, my twin sister and I used to make it out at least once during the fall to an apple farm by heading west out of the Minneapolis area on highway 169.  We would make a day of it, tasting apples, buying and tasting strudels, ciders, butters, and any other apple related treats you can think of.  It is something I hope to carry on with Hadley and hopefully she will have the same warm and fuzzy nostalgic feeling when she thinks of apple tasting and her childhood.

By the time we made it to the end of the line at the tasting tent it had started sprinkling and we knew it was only going to get worse.  From the looks of the line, we wouldn’t be tasting apples any time soon so we made it over to the adjacent kids tent in a hurry.  There were a number of activities for Hadley to take part in.  She could color a picture, get her face painted or paint a pumpkin.  However, the only thing she wanted to do was run around in the rain.  She kept pointing out of the tent and saying “rain!!”.  It was just then that John realized he had left the sunroof open in the car.  By that time it was pouring and John had to run the 4 blocks to the car to close it.

soaking wet, but at the car!

We decided that since the rain wasn’t looking like it was going to be making it’s way out of the vicinity any time soon and we had about 15 pounds of apples in our arms, it would be a good time to make our way home and get some of those apples in the crockpot for that evenings dessert.

We made a run for the car as fast as we could in the rain.  Hadley loved it and just laughed and laughed.  It certainly lightened the mood and made it all part of the adventure.  After we got in the car and sighed in relief that we were out of the rain, we headed home and Hadley enjoyed the perfect red anjou pear that she had picked out as we made our way home.

There are a few more pictures of the day that you can check out here.

Happy Apple Tasting!

me:  “I live in Oregon, and it is often rainy here in the winter.  I’ve noticed that my service gets interrupted with the slightest bit of rain or wind.  Is this normal or do I need to have a technician come look at it?”

Customer Cervice Guru:  “That’s normal.  If I lived where you do, I would suggest a dish cover.”

me:  “Ok, what’s that?”

CSG:  “A cover for the dish.”

me:  “Ummmm, yeah, I kind of figured.  Is that something I can purchase from you or do I buy it from another retailer?”

CSG:  “You can buy it ‘on the line’ or at Best Buy.”

me:  “Yeah, ok.  Thank you, I can take it from here….”

L to R: Jeff and Ana, Heather, John and Hadley, John, Walter

After being sick for nearly 5 days, we made it out of the house to take part in Portland’s 2009 AIDS walk.  Our team (Team Yrazabal) raised over $600 for the charity and we walked a 5k (3.1 miles) around Portland’s beautiful waterfront esplanade.  It was a chilly morning with temperatures topping out in the mid-50’s but it was dry, and we were grateful for that.  Ana and Hadley were very compliant and enjoyed watching all the people and dogs go by.

John took some great pictures of the crowd, I heard an estimate of around 10,000, with our lovely city as the backdrop and as promised, here they are.

Thank you to those of you who donated to a wonderful charity!!