Jacobsen Family

1st Ride of the Season - Duthie Hill

Lars and I headed to Duthie Hill today for our first mountain bike ride of the season. It was such a blast! I love the feeling of being completely exhausted from a day of fun.

The trails were short, the conversations long. The decents are not long like Sandy Ridge Trails in Oregon, but neither was the ride/walk up. It is the perfect place to build on skill and ride your butt off.

It made for an amazing kick-off for the biking season. I even improved every run and braved up and did a bigger drop than I thought I could do!

We met and talked to about six different people, and exchanged info. with a few of them to ride with later. The people I run into when mountain biking are some of the nicest people, and so supportive. One of them was this gal who was a total bad ass out there. She offered to show me some drops I could progress on. Following her was a huge help, seeing her ride and trying to follower her speed.

Will get some pictures to post next time we head out.

Our adventure continues... in Washington state. Lars and I love Oregon but struggled fining jobs and wanted to be closer to some family. We stayed with Lars's mom until the house we are renting was available. Helle was so nice to take us in, and it was great spending time with her.

I love the house. We have been here since March 15th. It is located in a quiet neighborhood, so it's easy to sit on back porch and listen to all the birds. There are two squirrels we see regularly. They spend most of their time running along the top of the fence in backyard with peanuts hanging out of their mouths. Such great entertainment!

The job hunt continues, hopefully at least one of us gets something soon. It's job hunting and hitting the gym. Looking forward to mountain bike season. The trails should be opening up soon! We are still hanging on to our, owning a mountain bike shop dream. We plan to get a business plan and do some serious research this year.

Here are a few pictures of the house we are currently renting. The house is yellow with two blue rooms. We actually really like the yellow, and it is more inviting than the pictures show.

View from front door - stairs to left kitchen to right.

No mowing required - great for rental

This is master, it has walk-in closet and bath.
The house is three bedroom and 2 1/2 baths.

Here are some pictures from a hike we took. Fresh Spring growth was everywhere and we definitely smelled the skunk cabbage, which brought with it some nostalgia from when we used to live up here.

Playing outside, enjoying the Spring air wore everyone out! Nap time anyone?

Institute of Children's Literature Certificate Received!

Finally finished my 2 year course with the Institute of Children's Literature - Writing for Children and Teens! I got my certificate, yeah!!!

Fall

Fall brought some rain and mushrooms just popped up everywhere, I love it!

How cute are these!

A Day of Beautiful River Exploring

This river is a short drive from the house on the ski resort Melanie and Justin are renting. It is hands down, the most breathtaking river I have ever seen. The whole river is rock, some of it sparkles in the sun. There are small pools of water where frogs hide and are spotted as we explore the area. I wanted to soak it all up as long as I could. It was one of main highlights for me.

My amazing sister Melanie with big girl Sequoia, so sweet.

Melanie and I braved the cold water and swam here with the frogs!

Eye candy

Cute little naked bum. Sequoia keeping an eye on Leif

Foodie pictures visiting Vermont

Leif, such a cute little helper!

You know your in for a treat, always good food at my sisters house.

The boys stirring apple shavings into the pancake batter.

Dinner Mel made from Martha Stewart magazine. Looks like the picture!
Chicken broth, brown rice, spinach, egg - so good

Melanie shared this spicy Fall dessert wine, yum!

Utah visitors!

We have had our first visitors from Utah! My sweet friend Jennifer and her husband Jerry, chose to visit us for their Labor Day weekend. Jennifer has most of the pictures so I will prob. add more when I get some. It was so good to see her, and meet her husband. We had a blast and enjoyed having them stay with us!

Miniature golf anyone?
The four of us checked out Mt. Hood Skibowl! It's a bit like Snowbird during the summer, alpine slides, rock wall, trampoline bungee things, zip-line, etc. It wasn't as cool as Snowbird to be honest, but we still have fun. We did few runs on alpine slides, mini-golfed, Jennifer's hubby and I climbed the rock wall, and ate lunch.

Here is me trying be so cool!

The Goyte concert was awesome, great performance!
Jennifer and I had great time explored Portland together
and later went to the concert!
The guys had sweet day of mountain biking and hung out.

"Hey Sophie, do you see that bird down there? I bet you can't catch it with one paw." Kaiser said.
"Meow. I am sneaky sneaky and quick like a bunny. I can catch it with only my mouth!" Sophie replied.
Butters puts his face toward the window, "Where, where? I don't see any bird."
"Ha ha silly Butters, you aren't even looking in the right direction!"

Eeek!

Awww, you were scared of this little pointy nosed critter?
My cats Butters and Sophie are going haywire bringing stray animals in the house. I keep telling them no they cannot keep them, but the won't give up.
Seriously though, they have brought 1 mole, 4 or 5 mice, 2 bluejays, 1 robin, probably more that I am forgetting. They bring them in alive, we catch and rescue them and they survive! There were two mice that didn't make it though, crazy hunter cats!
I don't want germ loaded rodants and such in my house, yuckers.

My brother Jonathan and his buddy Mike came to help a friend move here. Lars and I were able have some fun with them at Cannon Beach and a killer day riding at Blackrock!

I have some Go-Pro footage of me riding the Hide & Seek trail and the ones at Blackrock, but am having issues posting them. I also changed my settings so those of you that are interested may now leave comments.