Category Archives: Life

Life

Charity, Moose Heads and Homemade Pizza – P365

I had a working date with the girls on Monday night. A group of my very talented women friends are organizing the 2010 Iron Bartender benefit to support a local charitable organization called the Children’s Relief Nursery. We’re all mothers, so the organization’s mission to prevent abuse and neglect for at risk children is something we all support wholeheartedly.

We’re also a group of working mothers so we enjoy the monthly opportunity to get together and talk and… ok… have a drink or two. But I promise – we are extremely efficient. We have to be. The event is in about three weeks. Eeeck!

If you’re in the Portland area then I encourage you to buy a ticket. Besides feeling good about the support you are giving to this wonderful organization, you will also have the opportunity to eat great food, sample a few cocktails and have a lot of fun in the process. We’ll also be crowning the 2010 Iron Bartender from a group of Portland’s most talented drink mixers.

So what does this have to do with Moose Heads? I saw this hanging on the wall in the bar where we had the meeting last night. Isn’t he beautiful? The perfect subject for day number 4 of my P365 project.

Day number 5 has nothing to do with moose heads or charity.

Kei and I are on a quest to live a little healthier and try to save money. Enter the homemade pizza. Thomas and I made it together tonight – his side without vegetables of course. Disclaimer: I didn’t make the dough myself. I’m far too lazy for that.

A Surprise Snowy Day in Portland

Just before the end of the year, Portland decided to surprise us with a 24 hour snowstorm. Thankfully I was working from home and didn’t have to suffer through the horrible traffic that resulted – some people were on the road for hours.

Instead we were able to enjoy the short burst of frigid cold. Well, for a few minutes anyway. Friends stopped by and we had plans to walk to the park but the snow storm picked up quickly and we made it two blocks before we decided that it would be a terrible idea. I was able to see Samuel enjoy his first real snowfall and have fun for a few hours with the kids. The snow had all melted within a couple of days and that’s just fine with me.

Here are a few images I captured. You can see the early ones where it looked like a few snowflakes would be a novelty. By the time the snow stopped at around 7pm and I stepped outside to grab some photos in the moonlight, we had been blessed with about 4 inches of the white stuff.

The Beginning of P365 2010

3 days in and going strong. I am going to try and publish my P365 photos each week. It got to be too much when I tried to post them each day last year, so we’ll see how this goes.

Note: Apparently I am drawn to the photos that tell a story rather than the best photo of each day. It’s just the way I roll.

Appropriate that this is one of my first images of the year. It was some whiny combination of “Mummy” and “Uuuuuuup”. I have to say that I prefer this neediness over the Daddy obsession of a couple of months ago. Doesn’t make it easier to listen to all day though.

A new year means trying out a new local coffee shop. This one has adorable miss-matched dishes, good food, a children’s playroom AND free Wifi. I think we’ll be visiting again.

Bowling today at Thomas’ request. It’s funning how the 10 pin bowling experience remains the same regardless of where you are in the world. The same shoes in the same patterns and colours, same dingy faded “carpet”, same musty, stale smell and the same desire to liberally apply Purell as soon as you leave… Good thing we all had a great time. The most enjoyable part was waiting for Thomas’ ball to slo-o-owly travel down the lane, bouncing off bumpers along the way. In terms of the time it takes to play a game, we definitely got our money’s worth.

A Few Favourites from 2009

I prepared a post on Thursday night (yes, New Years Eve – what else did you think I’d be doing?). It included a whole bunch of favorite photos from the year and I had it prepped to post on Friday morning… or at least I thought I did. Seems the post has vanished into thin air. So I’ll try again and this will post a couple of days after the new year and will lose the poignancy of all the other “happy 2010” blog posts, but I can live with it if you can.

Here are just a few of my favorite family photos from 2oo9.

Looking forward to 2010 with more experiences, memories and, of course, more photos.

Bye Bye 2009

Kei and I are seeing in the new year with a glass of wine, a DVD and a child who refuses to go to sleep. How’s your party?

I am not a big fan of resolutions. I prefer achievable goals and here are a few that I am aiming for in 2010:

  • Project 365 – embarking on my photo a day project again. I gave it up early in 2009 and I really miss it.
  • Learning more about my camera and overcoming my fear of using flash. Suggestions for courses or workshops in the Portland/Seattle area are welcome.
  • Building my photography business while also continuing to evolve my day job into something that supports my creativity. I love the way Lyrebird Images is taking off and I hope it grows even more in 2009.
  • Getting my US Citizenship. Of course I’ll still be an Aussie. I’m just trying to add one more passport to our complicated travel experience.
  • Finish painting the inside of our house – 18 months after we finished the renovation.

There are others of course but they would fall under the title of resolution so I’m scared to put them in print.

2009 was good to us but I am looking forward to 2010. For now though, as Samuel would say, “Bye Bye 2009”.

Letting it go…almost

Christmas is over for another year, but I am so far behind in posting photos that the christmas-themed posts will likely continue this week. I will try and post one per day so I can begin the new year refreshed and free of twinkly lights and creepy little elves that watch your every move.

One of my goals for this year to was to do at least one family thing each week that would help get us into the Christmas spirit. These ranged from simple things like watching a holiday movie (can’t wait until Thomas is old enough to appreciate Elf) and decorating the tree to larger family outings like our ride on The Polar Express and, in this instance, a visit to The Grotto for the annual Christmas Festival of Lights.

Thankfully the Portland winter has been kind to us so far this year and we were able to browse the grounds in relative comfort… well except for the crowds of people who shared the experience with us.

Nevertheless it was a fun family Christmas outing and I got my fill of pretty lights for the year – and, of course, many photos of the pretty lights.

Christmas Week

I am at home with the boys this week while school/daycare are closed. We’re doing our best to keep ourselves occupied and away from the craziness of the stores (although we did make one quick trip to Barnes and Noble yesterday to pick up an Elf – more on that later). Thomas and I even baked cookies yesterday. Of course I didn’t have the oven hot enough so they took twice as long as they should have to cook. It pays to read instructions properly.

I also got all my wrapping done and have everything we need for Christmas dinner apart from a couple of things I’ll be picking up the day before. I am officially ready for Christmas.

On the agenda for today… Samuel’s first haircut. We had to wait three years for Thomas’ first haircut so this is a bit of a treat. I’ll be back with photos of course, but for now I’ll leave you with some photos of two little boys who are definitely getting in the spirit.

Wearing Pajamas and Meeting Santa

In October (yes, October) I purchased tickets for the Polar Express. I am not ashamed to say that I was more excited than my kids to take part in this new Christmas tradition. And I was even clever enough to purchase tickets for a trip in early enough in December to avoid possible weather cancellation. In fact the week after we took our trip they closed down the freeway for a couple of days due to ice.

The day we took our trip on the Polar Express, though, it was unseasonably sunny. So much so that taking photographs was a challenge – well, beyond the usual challenges of two unwilling participants.

This is Samuel saying “go away!”

Kids wear their pajamas on the Polar Express, just like they do in the book and movie. It was the perfect (and rare) opportunity to dress them up in their flannel pajamas and little dressing gowns (or bath robes in American).

Int he process of dressing them I realized I may have the cutest kids on the planet (and I know every mother thinks that).

Ignore the obnoxious Wiggles hat. He has a much cuter hat that he never wears but I’m choosing my battles.

We left in (I thought) plenty of time, but ended up arriving about only 10 minutes before the train left. I hate being late and that last 30 minutes in the car was tense.

But we did make it and quickly found our seats. Samuel refused to take off his coat for the first 30 minutes or so.

And then the fun began. First, some hot chocolate and cookies. (I only managed to get a shot of the back of one of the servers).

And the story was read over the speakers. I came prepared with our own copy of the book to follow along but left it in the car in our mad rush to get to the train.

How did a photo of me get in there?

After about 45 minutes we reached the North Pole and there was someone familiar there to greet us.

He boarded the train and went around greeting each child.

Mine were a little freaked out by the whole experience and refused to sit on this strange man’s lap. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Each child received a bell as a gift.

After some carol singing and another hour or so, we arrived back at the station. It turned out to be about 15 minutes longer than perfect, with the kids starting to become a little stir crazy.

As we walked back to the car for the long drive home, it really felt like Christmas had come for the Ishidas.

Making Our Own Fun

Kei and I bought each other a new TV and Blu Ray player for Christmas. Which meant we were able to give away our 150 pound tube TV and regain our peace of mind now that there is no longer the danger of it falling on one of our children. Not to mention the fact that I am ecstatis that we never have to move that thing again. I shiver to think about the time we nearly dropped it pulling it out of the back our rented station wagon the day we bought it.

A new TV also meant a trip to Ikea – because a sleek, shiny, sparkly flat screen is just calling out for a piece of minimalist, hard-to-assemble, swedish furniture.

I. Love. Ikea. I have been known to visit on one of my rare days off without a real purpose – to simply browse the many aisles of the “marketplace”. I dream of a day when I can visit without my children and, ok, and my husband, whining and crying to leave.

Good thing they have play areas for the kids every few feet, although it did slow down the shopping experience somewhat.

After about 2 hours of browsing and lunch and more browsing, we finally made it to the labyrinth. We were close to naptime so while Kei searched for our box of unassembled goodness, I managed to keep the kids entertained by chasing them up and down one of the aisles.

Our Ikea trek was on a Sunday (one of the worst days to visit the store) so this was literally  the only square footage that was not crammed with people.

We kept this up for about 20 minutes. It’s amazing how easy it is to keep those boys entertained when there is limitless room to  scream and laugh and run without running into other people.

So in summary, these are some of the highlights of  my life at 34 – a new TV that makes up for the fact that I rarely see movies in a theatre anymore, dreaming of three hours uninterrupted in a furniture store, lunch for under $4 (!) and chasing two little boys until they are exhausted enough to take a nice long nap.

Not bad at all. 🙂