Isabella's birthday fiesta!

Isabella turned one this week! My mom and I had a great time at her birthday fiesta on Saturday. Crystal and her crew made hundreds of tamales (meat/chile ones and sweet ones, which I have never had), chili, horchata, and more - so good! We enjoyed watching the kids whack the huge, candy-filled pinata. Isabella is so cute and fun - she plays very well with all the kids at the party.
Happy birthday, Isabella!

Real men use tools that can maim if used incorrectly

This afternoon Mike and I got busy putting up walls in the basement. We bought some gear at Home Despot including this nailer that uses .22 cal shells to power the nail. Really awesome. If you have stuff that needs to be nailed to cement let me know and I will do it for you. The shell firing is quite satisfying.

Here are the before and after pics--the idea is to finish this corner of the basement and turn it into a computer nook. We got a good amount of work done. I've wanted to work on this for a while, and it was nice to get started.
Oh, and nobody was maimed.

A new keyboard instrument in the house

Carley had been thinking about taking piano lessons, so last weekend we rented a piano. It was delivered on Thursday and Carley has been plinking away on it. Today she found some music books and is going to start practicing.

I think it's funny that it's in the same place as the organ was. I like the piano more than the organ, though.

Labor day lunch

I visited with my grandmas and Mom at the Labor day lunch and my grandma's retirement center. It's always nice to see everyone and get the family updates and share what we've been up to. The "Grandmas" are doing well, and we had a lovely time~
C**

Wags and Jacey

Wags and Jacey love each other! Jacey is my parents' Golden Retriever, and Wags is always excited to go to his dog-grandparents house to visit his pal~

My parents kindly took care of Wags while we were in Denver, and we know Wags gets spoiled rotten, as any grand-dog-child should :)

Biking to work!

Inspired by Dave and the Bike Commute Challenge, I rode in to work today! Dave and I started out at ~7:15 this morning, met up with Tim at 57th and Handcock, and then I went my own route around Providence Hospital, through to the Hawthorne Bridge. I was never alone, as there are sooo many biker out in the city. At the bridge, there were 4 gals all waiting for the light - fun!
At OHSU's waterfront building, there are underground bike lockers, and I was able to clean up at the gym in my building. Then I enjoyed my much-deserved banana-chocolate chip muffin and coffee!!

My route:

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Aspen adventures

My fellow lab gals and I went to the Aspen Perinatal Biology symposium, and we managed to learn about wildlife biology beyond the conference setting.

We had several black bear encounters, starting with a personal encounter with a bear sniffing around the back door to our conference center on the first night. Then on the last day of our conference, a bear broke into the conference center in the early morning, helping himself to 3 lbs of cream cheese and a few packages of bagels and waffles. He needed a nap after that tasty meal, so he climbed the nearest tree and snoozed all day! As the conference adjourned, we all got a good look at another large bear that climbed down a tree for a few minutes, discovered there was nothing exciting except some amazed people, and then climbed back up a tree!

The conference center was right in Aspen, and apparently they are having bear troubles all over the valley.

To inspect the wildlife, we took a tour of the nearby Environmental studies area.

They have a resident Golden Eagle that has lived there since 1982! We were within 15 feet of her - so amazing!


We braved the Independence Pass road on our trip back to Denver, so we had to stop at the Continental Divide marker for some pictures. This was the scariest car trip i've driven or been on. While it was (mostly) safe, there were a few places where there were not even two lanes, just a wide area where you had to slowly make your way and hope on one came in the other direction. Ugh~