Home Sweet Home

I took these pictures during May and June of 2008 during our visits and travels in the weeks following our return from Africa. I share them now to help explain how lovely our homecoming was. It was like the spring and summer were shouting, "Hello! Welcome home!"

The view just down the road from Jacob's parents' house where Jacob grew up


Just a little bit further down the road

The Columbia River Gorge as seen from the top of the hill in Jacob's parents' back yard

Mt. Hood peeking through the trees also as seen from the backyard

Here you can see the setting of Jacob's childhood home and the place of our residence in 2007. I miss it. We had a lovely time living there.

Flying over the Cascades is always a treat. This is Mount Hood as seen from the air above Hood River Valley. You can just see Mount Jefferson in the distance.

And here is Mount Hood and Mount Adams as seen from the South, with the Columbia River flowing between them.

Flying is wonderful, but driving also has its own delights. The next four pictures were taken while traveling westbound on I-84 through Idaho and the Blue Mountains in Eastern Oregon.

Last fall, our dear friend Kristen came to Portland for orientation for a new job she was taking in Uganda. Jacob and Kristen went to grad school together and we've stayed in touch. We really enjoyed her visit and we took her to see the sights and do some short hikes along the old highway.

Kristen at Crown Point


Waterfall Pics




It's good to be home.

Coming Home to Ava's Birth

As springtime comes I am reminded that we have been back in the United States for almost a year now. We returned from Africa in May last year. Upon our return I realized afresh that the United States is a remarkably amazing place, and that there's no place like home. In the first few weeks after our return, and while looking for a job, we visited family in Utah, Idaho, and Oregon to help ease our transition.

When returning from a place like the DR Congo, one must expect a bit of culture shock. This was the worst I had experienced yet - I was so overwhelmed by the new city, the different culture (even though it was familiar), the fast pace of life and all the technology, and reverting to speaking English and Spanish again. I do believe my new coworkers believed me to be a very shy person at first, because it was all I could do to learn and absorb the new tasks of my job in the fast-paced high-risk labor and delivery department. Interacting with my environment beyond that was too much for me to handle at first. I got over it, though.

The timing of our homecoming could not have been better, because a day or two after our return my brother James and his wife Katie called with the news that Katie's water had broken and they were off to the hospital. We quickly drove from Salt Lake to Idaho Falls so that I could be present to help Katie (and my brother James, too) through the labor and delivery process. It was such a special experience to be present at Ava's birth and to be able to meet her and greet her as she came into the world. Ava eventually came via cesarean section, and since I'm a labor and delivery nurse I was allowed to enter the operating room with Katie and James and stay with them, explaining to them everything that was going on. Usually hospitals allow only one family member into the operating room so it was a great privilege to be there. I was also deeply honored by James and Katie for inviting me to be a part of this amazing experience.

Proud Aunt Laura holding beautiful Ava - just minutes old.

Labor and Delivery Rocks!

Yes, another picture I took at work requiring an explanation. On the very snowy night spoken of in the previous post, an enterprising nurse from the Mother Baby Unit upstairs took it upon herself to inscribe "MBU ROCKS" along with some snow angels on the roof of a parking garage for all to see. Not to be outdone, our charge nurse ran out real quick (leaving somebody else in charge, of course) and added her two cents of "L&D ROX MORE!" You know you have a good charge nurse when she braves the elements to boost morale! I helped deliver two babies that night. One was by emergency cesarean. That baby might not have survived if we had not been there to intervene. As it was, everything turned out just fine. I love being able to help like that.

It be snowing in Portland!

When I got back from Utah, a vastly different sight greeted me. Winter had come. And then it kept coming. And coming some more. And more again. In fact, it's still coming.

These are the conditions in which I had to commute to work
the night of December 20th.


This is what I experienced on my way home
the morning of December 21st.



Well prepared people got to enjoy the snow thoroughly, like these lucky cross country skiers that I walked by in downtown portland while on my way home. Portland itself is not prepared for snow like this because it happens so rarely. It does not make economic sense here to stock up on enough snow plows to clear the streets like they do in cities where it snows often, so instead, we enjoy walking down the middle of the street when it snows. On a normal winter day, this street is full of cars and wet with rain.

I heard on the news later that this storm was the worst storm Portland had seen since 1980. Jacob remembers that storm. He had just turned 5 years old and he remembers how tall the snow was.

Visiting Dad and Elaine in Utah

Last week I took advantage of six days off from work and no other scheduled obligations to visit my dad and my lovely stepmom. They've been married over a year and a half now and they're so much fun to be around. The visit with family cheered me up a lot. I hadn't even realized I was homesick until I went to see them.




It was fun to see all of Elaine's decorations. She always puts a manger out in front of the Christmas tree and then on Christmas morning, everyone wakes up to find Baby Jesus lying there.





When I left for Utah, it had not snowed yet in Portland. I enjoyed a beautiful winter wonderland at their house. They live in a beautiful community with gorgeous views of the mountains.

The Wasach Mountains as seen from the driveway.

There is a really nice racquetball court, jungle gym, and slide in their backyard. Notice all the deer tracks in the snow. Being nocturnal, I woke up at one o'clock in the morning and saw several deer strolling and lounging all over the lawn in the moonlight the night before I took this picture.

Deer tracks in the driveway

My dad is really good at playing the piano. He is the one who inspired me to learn how to play. He and his brother both play very well and they used to play in shows together when they were young. My mom used to say, "When those brothers came to Redmond High School my senior year they knocked our socks off! We had never seen anything like them." It has been a dream of my dad's for many years to get a grand piano. But not just any grand piano, a Chickering grand piano. Well, he was looking online a while back and saw that the Chicago Philharmonic was selling one of their old pianos and he bought it. With a piano like that in your house, you can't help but want to play it all the time. It's beautiful. This video of him playing for his grandchildren brings back fond memories of singing around the piano as a kid.

Batayaki

While I was in Utah, Dad and Elaine hosted a birthday party for one of my step sisters and her husband. I had never experienced a batayaki party before and I didn't know what I was missing. This is what I love about learning different traditions. You find wonderful things to add to your life that enrich it so much. For those of you who are like I was two weeks ago - ignorant about batayaki - here's what you do: Everyone who comes brings different items of bite sized meat or vegetables. These are then cooked in butter on electric griddles right on the table. Everyone cooks their own choice of food to perfection and eats it hot and sizzling straight from the griddle with rice and a sauce made from soy sauce, rice vinegar, and horseradish. Yummy! I shot a video from my place at the table so you could see what I mean.


Also at the batayaki birthday party, this darling little girl tried out a bouncing baby thingy for the first time ever. There were lots of cousins at the party having fun together. Kids are so much fun! We hope we adopt soon because if we do, our child(ren) will have six cousins all the same age. By next April, there will be two cousins from Laura's side of the family and four cousins from Jacob's side of the family all born within 16 months of each other. Even more amazing is they're all girls.

The Emmy

When I was in junior high school, my mom said to me one day, "Oh, did I tell you? You dad won an emmy award." I was quite surprised and said, "Really?" She said, "He won it a while ago, but they haven't given him the statue yet." After more questions, I found out that he had been part of the broadcast team that had covered a particularly bad Malibu fire that won a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award. Well, I had almost forgotten about it until a few weeks ago when someone called up my dad and said, "We have your emmy down here collecting dust. You want it?" He said, "Sure!" and it was delivered the next day. So it was true! We do have an emmy award winner in the family. Not just an emmy award nominee... a winner! What a nice tribute to my dad after so many years of good work in television. My dad was very well liked at the TV station where he worked. They even did a spot on him on the 10 o'clock news when he retired. We're all very proud of him.

Flying through Clouds

On the flight home from SLC to PDX I was treated to some breathtaking clouds. Here are my favorite photos and video from that flight. These were taken somewhere over Idaho or eastern Oregon:

Silly Nurses

This picture of me and some of my coworkers deserves an explanation. We nurses are usually very busy and involved in our patient's care. However, on a labor and delivery unit, the nurse:patient ratio can change on a dime. Occasionally, (very occasionally) our patients deliver their babies at the same time and we take them upstairs to the post partum unit and there we are in the wee hours of the morning with hardly any patients and a bunch of nurses. Some nurses go home, but a core group must remain at work in case there is a flood of new admissions. Silliness usually erupts at times like these. Somebody brings out the stick-on tattoos and the knitting needles, and we pose for silly pictures. I assure you, these are all very professional, competent women. :)

Laura's First Attempt at Making Sushi

Well, folks, here it is. The long awaited, long anticipated,
drum roll..... sushi plate! Made by yours truly. I have been a fan of sushi ever since I was introduced to it during my senior practicum in nursing school, back in 2005. I don't eat it as much as I would like because it is so expensive. Well, I have now discovered from experience that one of the reasons it is so expensive is because you pay for the labor. The ingredients themselves are pretty reasonable. Yay!

I have to admit, this wasn't the most tasty sushi I've ever had, but I plan to experiment and have fun. Bring on the wasabi!

A Fun December Day

<----This way to fun day!----->

I work night shift and therefore refer to myself as nocturnal. Portland is known for its cloudy, rainy days. It's been a mild winter so far, but I still see the sun far less than I would like. Jacob woke me up the other afternoon and said, "I know sleeping is good, but it is such a gorgeous day outside, you really should come with me." We proceeded to have a fantastic afternoon, enjoying some of the sights around Portland. Having just discovered the delights of blogging two weeks ago, I brought the camera along so we could record and share the joy:

Just look at that clear blue sky!

At the Rose Garden. The sun was so bright that the sky looks white in the photograph even though it was a beautiful blue.

We were really bummed that we couldn't climb on the decorative, artsy cow :(

It was possibly even more of a bummer that we couldn't climb on the train carrying a load of humongous logs.

BUT THAT DID NOT STOP US FROM HAVING FUN!
Hee hee hee!

Evil giggle

"I'm not sure these logs are entirely stable"

My hero!

Now for something really funny: Laura's attempt at being feminine in the Shakespeare Garden

The magic of HP Photosmart. This is actually two different pictures and two completely different rocks! We each took a picture of the other and I spliced them on the computer. Isn't technology cool? And don't we look sneaky and conniving?

This picture, however is completely untouched and legit. Jacob really is just too tall and too fat to fit through that door.

Of all the rose bushes, this one's name was our favorite.

When we started getting chilly we went down into the Robertson Tunnel to watch some real trains go by. This is the MAX blue line heading to Hillsboro.

On the way home I snapped pictures of the sunset from inside the moving car. Here are my favorite shots, pre and post tinkering on Photosmart. I love playing with colors!

Laura's latest achievement

I have loved Asian cuisine my whole life. In fact, I would be eating it all the time except that one has to go out to eat Asian food and that gets expensive. "But wait!" said my brain the other day: "Just because your mother never made thai food and sushi doesn't mean that YOU can't!" What a life changing and encouraging thought! I said to myself, "YOU, TOO, can make pad thai!" So... I went to the closest public library and found a thai food cook book. Tommy Tang's Modern Thai Cuisine to be precise. Thank you Tommy Tang! Thanks to Tommy and a fabulous asian food market a few blocks away, I am in business. Don't you just want to sink your teeth into this dish I put together (enlarged to show texture)? I mean, who knew that leeks curled up like ribbons when they are shredded! So, I've made pad thai every night for the last three nights at significantly less cost than buying it at the nearby thai restaurant. I feel like running down the street shouting "Eureka!" but apparently that can sometimes get you thrown in jail so I will restrain myself.



Next up: Sushi! Stay tuned for more adventures as Laura liberates herself from self doubt and dapples in international cooking!