Westmoreland Asays

This house is a block away from our house today. I didn't want to tip anyone off to what the Capital City Asays are mulling, so I've purposefully kept this hidden until now. But I wanted to capture the experience while it was fresh in my memory. Today stake conference was scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., but after Meg stepped out of the shower she announced that she had a crazy idea. We've been thinking about moving back to Portland, and Meg had earlier in the week driven through some neighborhoods in SE Portland after visiting her friend in Vancouver. Her visit had confirmed what I had figured out on paper: Westmoreland was a reasonably-priced neighborhood (relative to other nicer areas of Portland, at least), with relatively high number of kids/young families, and very accessible to ADP. So her crazy idea was to skip out on stake conference and attend the Moreland Ward, which is where we would go to church should we move to Westmoreland. The church building i...

The Capital City Asay's have finally made it. We must be super rich, according to some grey-haired lady from PSU. If you don't want to read the whole thing , here is the funny part worth quoting: “The only reason that households have maintained their standard of living over the last 30 years is that they have two wage earners,” she says. “Men understand that they cannot support a household themselves. The male breadwinner is a luxury for only the extremely wealthy.”

It's nice to have family with all the sweek hookups. While I was putting the kids to be on Friday night, Megan's brother Jared left a message inviting me to go to the Ducks/Arizona game with him on Saturday--quickest call I've ever returned. Meg decided to come, too, giving Charlotte some help with her two little ones (both younger than Edward), while Jared and I were at the game. Like my trip to Autzen in October, I've never been to Mac court before, and it was surreal walking up the stairs to our seats on the second level. I hope they never tear down the building just so they can cram more fans in; it is an amazing place to watch a basketball game, and surely a huge advantage to the Ducks (although clearly not enough today ). The building was literally rocking for most of the game. Our seats were in a great spot, and we had a perfect view of what could have been the game-winning shot by Tajuan Porter with 22 seconds left. The entire game was exciting, even thou...

I just came home from a most refreshing bike ride. I usually spend the Friday noon hour with the family, but they've gone haywire and taken our neighbor and two of her boys to Ikea in Seattle (Meg offered to drive, since the neighbor's husband took their suburban on a skiing trip with the scouts). So I pumped some air in my slightly sagging skinny tires, and rode throughout the streets of South Salem under blazing-blue clear skies. I did have an ulterior motive, however, and I found two Inifiniti G20's sitting side-by-side on a used car lot on 12th street. I've walked their lot before, as they have lots of nicer but older Japanese cars, so I propped my bike against the lot's fence and headed straight for the Inifintis. One was ugly beige and an automatic, so it was immediately off the list. The other was a black '94 G-20t (touring edition), with sexy-black leather that my buttocks and back simply melted into--some of the most comfortable car seats to memory--...

Thank goodness this happens but a few times a year. The major downfall about being so far away from the office in Portland is that, when conditions deteriorate, the commute gets really long--three hours this morning. I feel fortunate and blessed to have made it to the North Salem exit without incident (I have class at UCLA tonight--at least I did before they cancelled it), for the roads were one long sheet of ice, with freezing rain falling furiously from the sky. If I had my laptop with me, I never would have left the house--but there wasn't supposed to be a storm today, thus I wasn't prepared. The roads were crazy this morning. About 20 cars were along the side of the road from North Salem to Brooks, having spun-out or crashed. There weren't many problems into Portland, although the snow started to really pack up, and many cars got stuck trying to go up Capital Hill (from the Temple to the Terwilliger curves). The road outside my office has been closed for hours now, wit...

We hosted Uncle Donald, Aunt Lois, and cousin Ben--the new Keizer Asay's--at our house for dinner this evening after church. Aaron had declared earlier that he would spend the time upstairs in his room while our guests were here, but he actually stuck around for dinner--at least for a while. We realized that Aaron was missing some time later, and it turns out that he was out in the backyard playing. Never mind that we are experiencing a cold spell, with the mercury level hovering around 25 degrees. Aaron was determined to make charmigins--which for those of you who don't know, that is dirt with snow packed on top of it (we had a little snow fall this week, but it hasn't risen above freezing so it's stuck around), all in a plastic bucket--it sort of looked like a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting smothered on top. He eventually brought it inside to share with everyone. I'm still not sure how he was able to scoop up the frozen dirt with a tiny, plastic shovel,...

Warning for the light of stomach: this post might prove offensive. Like all posts, I take no responsibility for your reactions. Meg took Aaron to Sears on Friday to get his 4-year old pictures taken. While waiting for their appointment, Edward barfed all over the reception area (the diagnosis afterward was too much kool-aid too quickly). Aaron was ultra-cooperative during his photo shoot, so it went by quickly, but even so the mess had been cleaned up by the time they hit reception. On Sunday, after hosting the missionaries for dinner, we were all sitting in the family/living room listening to their lesson, when Aaron decided it was his turn to puke. The missinoaries took it right in stride, noting that this was the second time this week someone had puked while they taught a lesson. Diagnosis: too much tickling by Dad. Edward and I spent the last half of church sleeping in Bernice . I took Edward to nursery, but he was beligerant at the thought of me leaving. So he sat on my la...