The Portland Saturday/Farmer's Market

After living here for over a year, I finally made it to the Portland Saturday markets. Before Saturday, I didn't know I needed to make that plural, yet after trying to meet my two friends Ashley and Heidi on Saturday at the Saturday market and ending up two completely different places in downtown Portland, I realized there were two. We first (once we all met up) went to the Saturday Market. This market is located under/next to the Burnside Bridge, right across the street from the riverfront. For you fellow Ashlanders, I felt right at home in this market. It was kind of like the Saturday market they have there, except a lot bigger. There were all sorts of items to buy, including some fairly cute yet expensive crafts and some wildly crazy items you wouldn't see anywhere else.

After wandering around for awhile and enjoying the excitement, we headed back up to Portland State University for the Portland Farmer's Market. Here I felt once again transported to another place I love . . . France. There was a large grass area full of small, local farmers selling their fruits and vegetables, plus a little cheese, honey, and even some bakeries. I loved it! I bought some strawberries to make jam, and some delicious green beans and corn we had for dinner last night. I also splurged a little as we were leaving and bought a baguette and an almond croissant at a small French bakery stand. Delicieux!

Me, Heidi, Landon, and Jackson at the Saturday market.

Me, Heidi, Ashley, Landon, and Jackson (back behind) at the Farmer's Market. Don't those tomatoes look delicious!

Landon the Little Helper

Last night, I was making breadsticks to go with dinner when Landon walked up to me with a hot pad on his hand. He said, "Need wear no hurt hand." I guess he knew what it was for. He then came up to me, still with the hot pad on, and said, "Hafta make dinner." (Hafta seems to be his new favorite word. Hafta go that way, hafta go outside, hafta get a drink, ...) When he started opening the oven, I got a little nervous though, so I instead got him out a casserole dish. He carried it around for a minute, but then he wanted me to make dinner in it. I took out some orea cookies and lined them up in the pan. That once again satisfied him, and he walked around with his hot pad carrying the casserole dish full of cookies for awhile. This still wasn't enough, I guess, because soon he was back, and I saw him grab a can of beans off the counter. I thought he would just put the can in his casserole dish, but I heard rummaging behind me, turned around, and saw him reaching his hand up into the kichen drawer, pulling out items until he found the can opener! It was pretty funny. I guess he just really wanted to help mom out with dinner. Here's a picture of him holding "dinner."

Hafta go Ocean!

Last week, we went to Brookings for our annual coast trip with the Morris family. We left on Friday and drove down to Ashland. By late Friday night (more like Saturday morning actually) the rest of the family had arrived. The hilight of our day Saturday was the tennis tournament Jake had arranged. I didn't play, as I still feel quite nauseous at night, so Shane competed with David, and they made it to the championship, losing to Jake and Stacey. Landon had fun throwing tennis balls around and playing on the playground at the park.

Sunday, we enjoyed our going to church and relaxing most of the day, but in the evening we had yet another tennis tournament - this time table tennis. I did compete in his one, and had a little more success, even almost beating David (well, at least keeping up with him for awhile). He ended up being the overall champion, so I didn't feel too bad.

Monday morning, we woke up early and drove to the coast. We stopped, as usual, at Smith River for lunch. It was a little cold, but Landon didn't seem to mind. He loved throwing rocks in the water, and by the end, his shirt was pretty much all wet from reaching in to get the rocks. Shane took Landon over to this little island in the river, and they found a frog over there, which Landon thought was pretty exciting.

We then headed to the beach. It was cloudy, but actually quite warm since there was no wind! We had fun reading, playing baseball, and digging in the sand. Becky was the only girl brave enough to go in the water. The rest of us were glad we didn't when we saw her get knocked over by a big wave and come up soaking wet! Poor Beck! Landon loved the water too, but his favorite thing was running away from it. "Water coming! Water coming" he would yell as he tried to get far enough from the wave.

The next morning, Becky and Nate had to leave early, but the rest of us headed down to the beach again. We dug a big hole for Landon to play in, and Jake dug him some pretty cool tunnels to drive his cars in. It was a lot sunnier, but also more windy! Landon still loved it though, and we had to bribe him with other exciting things back at the campground to get him to leave! He was so exhausted when we got back that he fell asleep in his stroller while we were watching a helicopter, and stayed asleep the rest of the night.

It was sad to leave the ocean Wednesday. We packed up that morning, then went to the beach one last time to eat lunch. We were attacked by some pretty daring chipmunks while we tried to eat, but we all survived. They would even jump up right next to us on the picnic table to try to get some food! We've been home for a week now, and Landon still says, "Hafta go ocean" whenever he sees water, or pretty much anytime! I guess he had fun too!

Check out the pictures of our trip on our slideshow!

http://picasaweb.google.com/shane.malan/AugustCoastTrip02/photo#s5104629739095000834

A Whole Month!!! (Well, almost!)

I got on our blog this morning, and realized that with today being August 9 already, I realized I had better hurry and post again or it will officially have been one month since I last posted! It has been a busy last month, with lots of fun things to post about, but I guess I have been too busy . . . or should I say, lazy? :)

Three days after coming home from New York, we left for Park City, Utah, to stay with Shane's family. We had a great time visiting with family, especially Shane's sister Wendi and her kids as we hadn't seen them in almost two years. Landon especially loved playing with his cousin Laci, who is only six months older than him. The two of them were even patient with all of the hugs and kisses everyone made them give each other!

We came home a week later, only to have Shane's mom, grandma, brother Mark and sister-in-law Melanie come out to visit us. We were so glad to have them come, especially Mark and Melanie since they hadn't been out to see us yet. We had fun taking them to Cannon Beach and showing them around the area.

The night after they left, we went to a Portland Beavers baseball game at PGE park in Portland. We decided to take the Max train because we've heard parking can be bad. Landon loved it! He was grinning the whole way. I guess we should ride that into town more often!

Finally, our last recent trip happened two days after they left last week when we drove to Ashland to celebrate Shane's 31st birthday!!! Jake and Stacey have been in California for the summer, so we met them in Ashland for some fun times for the big day. Tennis was of course included, and Shane enjoyed playing in his brand new tennis shoes he got for his birthday. We also went to the park for a hot dog roast and played some horseshoes. Saturday night, we all went out on the trampoline to watch a movie on the "big screen" (a projector shining on a white sheet). It's been a fun few weeks! Here's a few pictures of the month's activities.

Landon watching TV with his three cousins.

Landon smiling while showing off his new haircut.

Playing boules in our backyard with the Malans. Landon felt left out, so he had to play with his ball. You can see him in the back waiting for his turn.

Landon taking his turn at the boules game.

Landon riding on the train to the baseball game. He was so excited!

At the baseball game.

Landon playing in his new water table.

We hope you enjoy the pictures. I'll try to do better from now on! Hope to hear from all of you too!

New York City!

That's right. I just got back from a five day trip to New York City. This was my first time, unless you count the many times I have been through the airports there on my way to France. It was a great trip. I flew out late Thursday night, and arrived in New York at 10:00 Friday morning. Darcy came up from Baltimore on the train, and Kim and Carrie Eagar, and Carrie's friend Paula, all came to meet me too. It was so fun to see the city. I took a bus into Grand Central station, which is beautiful! It has gorgeous architecture, and I felt like I was in France being at an old train station. I met up with everyone there, and we headed over to Times Square. It was neat to see, but a little bit of an overload for me! It is huge, with bright billboards everywhere . . and tons of people walking up and down the streets. Darcy took us over towards Central Park to her favorite pizza place, Angelo's. It was delicious, despite the heat in the restaurant! That afternoon, we went and waited in line at the TKTS booth, where you can get half price Broadway tickets. The line was pretty long, but moved maybe a little faster than we would have liked, because by the time we got to the front, we still weren't quite sure which show we wanted to see. None of the huge ones that were top on our list were available. We designated Kim as our "representative" to speak to the agent and get a recommendation of which of the three we should see, to which the ticket agent curtly replied that she doesn't give recommendations. Kim hurried and threw out the first one on our list, and it ended up that we made our decision based on which one had four seats together. We got tickets to Curtains with David Hyde Pierce.

By then it was about 3:00, and I was exhausted. We decided to do the bus tour of lower Manhattan. It was great. We hopped on the top of one of those cheezy double decker buses and immediately knew we had made a good choice as our tired legs relaxed. It was great to see the city from the top of the bus as we learned more about the city from our tour guide. We saw the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building, Rockefeller Center, Ground Zero, Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the United Nations building. We got off at Battery Park, where you can look out to see the Statue of Liberty. There were surprisingly several "Statue of Liberties" on the walk down to the real one as we saw people dressed up as the statue standing around for money.

We finished our bus ride back at Times Square, hurried and ate some dinner, and headed for our theater. After walking for awhile, we realized we were headed in the wrong direction and were running out of time, so we got a cab and relaxed as we drove to the theater. I guess one of us wasn't really relaxing though, because before we knew it Kim was paying the driver and telling us to hurry and hop out. We were only a couple of blocks away from the theater. Kim told us she just couldn't stand to see that little meter ticking up the price when we could just walk! :)

The play, although not amazing, was entertaining, and we all enjoyed the story and the songs. We took the train out to White Plains where my training was and our hotel. By the time we got to the hotel, it was after midnight.

Saturday, after my training, I took the train into town to meet Kim, Carrie, and Paula. We went to a Mexican restaurant called Maya. It was delicious! The best part was a three-sampler dessert that had bread pudding, chocolate flan, and caramel crepes. It was delicious! Afterwards, we met up with Darcy and walked over to the Rockefeller Center to go to the "Top of the Rock" as all of the signs advertise. We would have gone to the top of the Empire State Building, but the lines were very long, and we didn't have enough time to wait. There was no line to the top, so we went straight up. It was gorgeous on top! We could see all around the city, with everything all lit up. It was a great final activity for New York!

Eating at Angelo's.

Riding on the tour bus.

Me, Paula, and Kim in front of the Statue of Liberty.

On top of the GE building (Rockefeller Center)

The view of New York City and the Empire State Building from the top.

Carrie, Kim, me, and Darcy on the top looking down.

Happy 4th of July!

Today is the 4th of July. I think this is the first fourth of July we haven't spent with one of our families. We still had a good time, but it didn't seem quite like the fourth! We had a ward breakfast this morning. We got there about 30 minutes late though and couldn't find anybody! We're not sure if we went to the wrong place, or if the breakfast just ended really fast! We went to Village Inn instead and had a good breakfast there. Landon especially loved lining up all of the half-and-half containers along the edge of the table while we waited for our food.

For lunch, our friends the Roses came over. I had filled up Landon's alligator pool with water that morning, so it was nice and warm after lunch. Landon and Jackson had fun playing in the pool, and we had fun talking and watching the kids until it finally got too hot and we went inside. It is one of the warmest days we have yet this year today. Once inside, we took off the wet swimsuits, and Jackson and Landon had fun running up and down the hall in their matching Nemo swim diapers. They were pretty funny laughing and running around each other! I think Landon was just excited to have another kid around instead of just his parents.

Landon was pretty tuckered out after all the swimming and running around. He just wanted to lay on Shane once the Roses left, and then he took a little nap. It turned out to be a pretty good fourth, even though we did miss our families! Happy Fourth of July everyone! Be sure to let us know what you did!

(Whoops! I kind of got my toes in the pictures! I shouldn't have said anything and you probably wouldn't have noticed!)

Mowing the Lawn with Dad

Yesterday, we mowed our lawn for the first time in our new house. I think Shane was excited to get out his lawnmower again until he woke up this morning with awful allergies! Maybe I'll have to mow the lawn next time!

While Shane was out there, Landon decided he wanted to help his dad mow the lawn. We got out his little lawnmower, and he pushed it around the lawn after Shane. He would get a little nervous if the actual lawnmower got to close to him, but other than that he was having a great time! What do you think? Will he still love mowing the lawn when he is old enough to really mow it? :)