At the beginning of the year, we decided to buy a house. After looking around the Western Suburbs, we settled on a place ~4 blocks from my work. I did not intend to live this close to work -- but I have to say that I do enjoy it a lot! The commute it a bit harder for Janel -- but still only ~20-30 minutes. For some reason I don't have any good photos of the outside, so here are two from inside the house:
The living room from the stairway above:
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| From House Photos |
The family room from the kitchen:
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| From House Photos |
Needless to say, the house has consumed a lot of our free time this year. All in all, it is in really good shape and we have not had to make too many changes. We do spend a decent amount of time trying to manage the yard (which has a lot of stuff that needs attention).
We did get a few day-hikes in this year, but nothing really of note. You can see the photos that we do have in the photo gallery. I took Janel on her first backpacking trip. We did a simple 2-night trip up on the Olympic Coast. We hiked out ~7 miles to our campsite on the beach and spent two nights there before heading back. This was the perfect recipe for Janel. Here is a view of sunset from our campsite:
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| From Olympic National Park Coast |
Much of the summer was spent going to weddings. Over a 2-month period, we were invited to 8 weddings (none in Portland). We were only able to attend about half of them, which was too bad.
Katie McFadden got married first. This was a great chance to catch up with Rohini (and Steve) before their wedding the following week.
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| From Katie's Wedding |
Then we had a busy day with both Steve/Rohini and Jeff/Mary. I failed to take any photos at Jeff's wedding. It was good to catch up with some old friends from Western Springs. Here is a photo from Rohini's wedding with Janel and Laura in Saris.
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| From Rohini's Wedding |
After the night of two weddings, I went on a business trip over to India with a stopover in England where I visited some of my cousins. I stayed with John and Francis Boland (my 2nd cousins once removed) and had a blast. I really enjoyed London. Here is a photo of Parliament and Big Ben:
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| From London - England |
After England I headed over to India for work. I got in a car accident and got sick. Not the best of trips :(. Here is a photo from just after the car accident:
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| From India |
In August we attended two more weddings. First was my cousin Jason's. Here is a photo of Janel and my sister Erin:
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| From Jason's Wedding |
Later that month we went to Shelley and Pablo's wedding at a winery in the Santa Cruz mountains. I was the one who introduced the two of them, so that was kinda cool :). We got to catch up with bunch of my grad school friends. Here is a photo of Amy and Janel:
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| From Shelley's and Pablo's Wedding |
In September Allen, Steve, Kevin, and I went on our annual "big" backpacking trip. This year we went to the Wallowas in Eastern Oregon. It is a beautiful place -- although most of the "good" stuff is ~10 miles back in the backcountry. Here is a photo of the 4 of us at Polaris Pass:
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| From Wallowas |
In November Allen and I went to Italy for a conference. Janel could not join us because of school. We spent some time in Venice, attended the conference in Como, stayed on a farm in Tuscany, and visited Florence and Rome. I really enjoyed Rome -- November was a great time to be there. The crowds were not bad and the weather was perfect. Here is a photo of Allen and I at a bar in Rome trying an Italian alcohol. It may look red and tasty, but it was harsh and nasty. We had a lot of other much better alcohol while we were there :).
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| From Italy - Rome |
Before heading home for Christmas, the 2nd biggest snow storm in Portland's history hit us. This made for an interesting time trying to get home, as Portland is not well equipped to handle large snows. They do not even try to plow the local streets! Chains were required on all roads on the day that we drove to the airport and were able to make it on a plane back to Chicago. Here is a photo from our front porch looking down the snow covered street.
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| From Christmas 2008 Portland |
Next year should be another busy year. I will be having shoulder surgery tomorrow. We are planning a trip to Hawaii. We have 4 upcoming weddings (at least): Laura/Alain, Chris/Mariko, Tom/Maureen, and Erin (my sister)/Craig.
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