Proper beach attire

I am very lucky.  Although my family lives thousands of miles away, my three siblings, mom, and mom's boyfriend all came to visit us last week!  We had fun spending time together: watching movies, exploring Portland, playing board games, cooking at home.  We also took a day trip to Cannon Beach, which is a lovely place to visit any time of the year.  One doesn't go to the Oregon coast to sunbathe in December, so we occupied ourselves in other ways.

After my family flew home, Matt, the doggles, and I took a short trip to the Olympic Peninsula.  We found a cottage in Forks, Washington, not too far from the Olympic National Forest and some breathtakingly beautiful beaches.  It rained, as expected in the rainiest part of the country.  We were in a rainforest, after all.  It was glorious.

The four of us donned our raincoats and set out for our first hike together, not encountering any beast or person for the entire two hours on Christmas morning.

What a beautiful part of the country!

Happy New Year!  I hope 2012 is filled with happy surprises, time spent with loved ones, and new opportunities for us all!

Waterfalls of Looooove

Photos of the many waterfalls we saw on our hike at Wahkeena Falls yesterday.

Marriage begins with a waterfall. The years pass swiftly over the rocks, love and passion transform like water to mist, to water again. There are obstacles. There are multitudes of paths. There are springs and streams before the fall and there are rivers and vast oceans after. Life's journey, navigated by love through trickles and torrents, sometimes sees a waterfall, that breathtakingly, achingly beautiful crescendo, that misty existence where love and beauty, heartache and understanding are experienced in the intertwining of life.
Okay, with two years of "official" partnership under my belt I'm hardly the authority on marriage. So, you know, ignore my ramblings. This week with family in town and Doc's and my two-year wedding anniversary, I've been thinking about happiness.
I am married to a wonderful person, who is very much my partner in every way, have great friends and family (several of whom have already visited us in Oregon since our move!), am so completely thrilled with our new community, and am all around pretty blissful. There are downsides, sure, but that's life and isn't life wonderful? If you think about it, how lucky each and every one of us are to have a life, have relationships, have flowers and art and rain- you can't help but realize our shared existence is something that should be appreciated and savored, not unlike a piece of good vegan cheesecake.

(It was a very long hike, especially the "up" part.)

Happy anniversary, my wonderful person. <3

For those that know and love ferns

Since arriving in Oregon, my camera has barely made an appearance. However, DocDufresne and I snapped a few photos during a lovely hike in Tillamook State Forest, where we saw many kinds of ferns including a mystery fern, seen in the first two photos. Anyone know ferns of the Pacific Northwest? I'd love to identify it.

Mystery fern

In other news, we've been house hunting, which is both exciting(!!) and a little daunting. Doc and I are both really looking forward to living in Portland, as opposed to the suburbs, where we're temporarily residing. We're excited to (at last!) have room for a garden and still live in an incredibly walkable/bikeable area. Tonight we're taking a second look at a house that may be the one. Wish us luck!!

Wissahickon Trail Classic- June 5, 2010

Attention Philadelphia area runners and walkers!

I thought I'd get an announcement in for a really great event that's happening next Saturday, June 5th, in the BEAUTIFUL Wissahickon Valley Park.

The Wissahickon Trail Classic, a 10K trail run and 5k walk, is produced by Wissahickon Restoration Volunteers, a grass roots nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to restore the natural ecosystem of the 1,800-acre Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia.
ALL proceeds go directly to restoring the Wissahickon!

Advanced registration is still being accepted online here.

There will even be free vegan pizza and other goodies!

Although I won't be there this year helping out and taking photos, I'll definitely be there in spirit! As will Doc, who had a great time running last year and planned to participate again this year prior to our move.
Click here to see more photos from last year.


In other news, I will be posting about Doc's and my recent move across country very soon. Stay tuned!

Happy Earth Day!

I hope everyone had the chance to celebrate Earth Day in some small (or big) way!

I'm fortunate to work in the environmental field, following a passion of mine and fostering stewardship ideals in others. Today I worked with a group of high schoolers as we potted approximately 300 native saplings, previously rescued by volunteers from a mow-zone last fall.

The before photo!

Directly after rescuing these saplings from a mow-zone in a Wissahickon meadow last fall, we heeled them in during their dormancy. Heeling plants in involves digging a ditch for the bare roots, covering the roots with wood chips, propping the saplings up with a wooden board, and protecting the plants in a makeshift green house with white tarp placed above the rib in the photo. Amazingly, we only had a handful of casualties over the winter.

We had approximately 20 volunteers working for about an hour and a half to pot these guys, taking care not to cover the root flare, to stand the saplings up straight in the pot, and tamp the soil down correctly. We even experimented with two different types of soil.

The after photo!When these native trees grow large enough to withstand deer browsing, they'll be planted in the Wissahickon Valley Park. This group is made up of tulip poplars, sweet birch, and sweet gum.