First (non-snow) Hikes of the Year

The weather is finally getting nice enough (at least on some weekends) to do some hiking. Janel and I made a trip out to Angel's Rest in the gorge. We have reached the point where we are doing hikes for the second time, so this is not a new one for us. It was a nice way to start out the season -- about 4.5 miles and 1200 feet of elevation.





This past week I took my group at work on a Quarterly to Eagle Creek. This is in my opinion one of the best hikes in Oregon, and most of my group members had never been there. We actually ended up making it all the way to Tunnel Falls -- ~12 miles!

House Photos

Now that we are all moved in, I decided to take some photos of our new house. I hope you enjoy a little photo tour :). I have some additional photos in the photo gallery if you are interested. Click here.


As you walk in the front door, you come into our living room.





If you walk in and look back, you see our office. I am not going to show a photo in there because we have not really finished that room yet.





Here is another view of the living room looking back into the family room and kitchen and into the backyard.





If we walk back to the back of the house, you can look left and see the kitchen and our table that we eat dinner at.





To the right is the family room.





Here is a view of the family room from the kitchen.





Here is a look out the sliding glass doors onto our deck. There is a large flowering tree that provides shade on the deck.





The previous owner did a good job with landscaping. Here are the views to either side of the deck.








Let's go back inside now and head up the stairs. Here is a view looking down from the top of the stairs.





Upstairs we have three bedrooms and two baths. Here is our guest bedroom. I do not have a picture of the other room as it is currently empty and not very exciting.





Here is a photo of our master. Sorry the photo is coming out so dark.





And finally, a photo of our master bath.

Moved In

We are all moved in to our new house now. Thanks goes to Allen, Jason, Danny, Kendra, Anna, and Amy for helping us with the move. It went really smoothly. Internet is finally up and running. Most of our furniture is ready to roll (still waiting on a mattress delivery for the guest bed on Thursday). Otherwise we are just unpacking. I have just about cleared out half of the garage and plan on being able to pull a car in this evening :). Anyway ... I hear the garage door opening so I should probably go get the grill ready for dinner.

Closed

We closed on our new house and will be moving in starting Monday :). I sent out a mass email with the address update yesterday evening, but may have missed a few people. Please drop me an email or give me a call if I missed you and you need my new address.

Cross Country Skiing and House Update

Last weekend Janel and I headed up to Mt Hood Meadows to give cross country skiing a shot with Allen Aron and Kaitlyn. It was a good time. We started out with a lesson for about 1.5 hours, which I think was definitely a good choice. Then we had a good time trying the easy and intermediate trails around meadows. I was not a big fan of the easy (flat) trails -- too boring. But the intermediate ones were a lot of fun -- especially after you got over falling down every once in a while :).


The house stuff is wrapping up. We should be closing on Wednesday/Thursday and there is pretty nothing left in our way. We won't be able to move in until March 17th though. I can't wait! :)

Buying a House

Janel and I have been keeping pretty busy of late. For the past month or so we have been house hunting, and I think we have finally found the place for us. It is about 10 years old and is in great condition. We really like the flow of the downstairs, and it has lots of large windows. Needless to say, we are really excited :).


We are going to accept a counter-offer made by the sellers tonight, and will probably not move in until the middle/end of next month. We will have a guest bedroom complete with a real bed sometime this summer ... so start booking your flights out here now :). Obviously nothing is final until we close (currently scheduled for Feb 28) ... but hopefully we won't run into any roadblocks along the way.


Here is a photo of the outside of the house. I will be posting more in a month or so after I get some photos.





For those of you who feel inclined, you can search for RMLS number 8006173 ... although I don't know how much longer it will be available. Here are some photos (again ... not sure how long they will be available).

Long Time No Post

So it's been a long time since I have posted anything here. I am still doing the blog ... but honestly there has not been a lot of "blog-worthy" excitement out here of late. Just the regular Thanksgiving and Christmas parties and a lot of rain :).


Things should be getting a bit more interesting after the new year. The snow should be getting good up on Hood so we will be able to do some snow shoeing. I am planning on climbing Mt. St. Helens in March (while it is snow covered) ... and hope to do some snow-cave camping at some point. Maybe make a trip down to see Crater Lake while it is covered in snow.


Merry Christmas! Keep posted for more updates over the next few months...