Portland Parties with our adoptive Oregon family occur roughly two to three times a year. Usually to celebrate birthdays, holidays, etc. They are always a hoot involving lots of laughter, food and digital pictures to capture the fun.

We are always thankful to our friends for allowing us to share with them in their celebrations.

You guys know who you are.

Thank you for everything~

Life with Bella in it is pretty sweet. Seriously. Click on this sentence to see what I mean. When I was younger and pictured what I thought my life would look like, these are the things that I pictured: Oregon, dog, Toyota Tacoma. Everyone fantasizes about where they think they will be in ten years. It’s usually a classic question that is posed to young adults: “Where do you think you will be in five years? Ten?” Ten years ago, at age 15, I always had images of a chocolate lab, ears flapping in the wind from cruising up and down the Oregon coast in some sort of truck. Well, here I am. Oregon, dog, Toyota.

Oregon? Check.

Chocolate lab? Eh, Border Collie is close. Better actually if you ask me. Or if you ask National Geographic. In March 2008, a Border Collie graced the front cover of their issue dedicated to animal intelligence. Click here to check it out.

Truck? Well….The Rav is close.

I feel content. Like I have finally arrived. Daily life is pretty sweet. Every day starts with an early morning walk when it is still dark. Bella’s toes making short, quick click-clack sounds on the pavement as Geoff and I make our way through the sleepy houses in our neighborhood. We chat. Nothing important. Just the three of us.

Life happens everyday. Work, bills to be paid, ultimate frisbee games, etc. It’s all sorta squished in there somewhere.

But I can usually count on every day ending with a late night walk. When it is dark again. Just the three of us. Making our way through our now familiar neighborhood. Past each trash & recycle bin on Sunday evenings, past that one house with the friendly man we can usually count on to stop and make some small talk with. I know I can count on the strange sweet sound of Bella’s toes on pavement, the comfort of walking side by side with Geoff holding hands and the leash.

Yup. Life is pretty sweet. Especially with Bella in it.

I’m increasingly disappointed in our country’s politics. It seems that the more I read, the less I like either of the two primary candidates and the more fed up I get with the system we have that denies all others a genuine shot at leadership. It makes me sad to see one candidate who seems to have strong morals, has stuck to his guns, wants what’s best for our country and has clear plans of getting there being marginalized by our mainstream media (whose right to be unfair, he upholds) while two candidates who have pandered to the masses, lied and/or shifted allegiance, and built entire campaigns on either being just like Bush or being nothing like him.
I don’t know that I’m a Ron Paul supporter but I can’t claim to support either of the two mainstream guys. Obama seems weak-willed, having voted in favor of or skipped voting on some major issues that he says he opposes. McCain has shifted from being a strong constitutionalist to being Bush III.

The worst of this is that this has me torn. I (like JST) hate hate hate the term “Throwing away your vote” but I find myself having to weigh the import of voting for a third party vs voting for the lesser of two evils in the hope of making sure the worse one doesn’t prevail. Basically, is making my voice heard by voting for a third party worth the risk entailed with not voting against somebody terrible. Where is my instant runoff?

Sean always says “Vote your Hopes, not your fears.” So which hope do I vote? I hope McCain isn’t in charge but I also hope we get a president that sticks to his guns and wants better things for our country than we’ve had in the past 20 years.

Well, it’s been about three days since we arrived back in Eugene after our much awaited road trip to Montana.

There’s no place like home.

The house is quiet now; it’s 10:26 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Geoff and I are piled on the bed. He with a good book, and I with the laptop. Bella snores her quiet sleep in her bed just there across our dim room. Takes a few days to settle in again, to come back mentally from such a relaxing trip.

Our luggage has finally all been unpacked by now, the dirty laundry done. I just made the trek to the post office this afternoon to pick up the mail that had accumulated. I guess it’s back to life as usual.

But for one entire week this past summer, Geoff & I escaped. Click here for pictures. Click here for videos. We trucked our precious little “Bella-nator” off to the boarder, made our deposit and skedaddled. We loaded up the shiny new Rav, made our arrangements and closed the door on our kitties as they sat dumbfounded before their giant tower of food we save for special occasions such as this. The last thing I remember was of them madly munching away.

The next thing I know, we are on our anticipated road trip with friends in the back seat. It was uber early, coffee was being passed around. Groggy sleep from the night before quickly turned into excited car chatter as we tacked on the miles. Destination: Montana. Actually, to be more specific…Destination: Ultra cool, fancy/shmancy log cabin on the lake in Montana.

Approximately 30 hours round trip in a car with four people & a small dog is a recipe for stories. Unfortunately, at this point all I can recollect are the following: 1.) We must have driven past/through/nearby almost all of the 20-something towns I used to live in at some point in my life. While I was having a blast going down memory lane, I can only imagine what the other passengers were thinking. 2.) We certainly did not want for entertainment as we were often treated to various road-side anomalies such as rare & irresistible festivals. Despite not being able to stop and visit, the banners and hoop-la that could be gleaned from our very own seats in the vehicle were enough to create giggles for miles. Sweet Pea Festival? Testicle Festival? Anyone? 3.) I can now say I know what it is like to almost spend the night in my car amongst three other people. Note to self: reservations are definitely a must when traveling across country, because you never know when the elusive Sweet Pea Festival will cause an otherwise empty town to overflow with people needing a hotel room. Somehow, we were able to get the last of two remaining rooms available in Bozeman. What luck! Granted…our room smelled like the kitchen of Panda Express all night long…but it was better than the car. Besides, there is nothing like waking up in the morning strangely craving an egg roll. 5.) I also now know what it is like to nearly run out of gas while in the middle of nowhere, while all passengers wait with baited breath as the driver curses their way on…mumbling about how the strong winds must have botched the mileage we expected to get out of this tank of gas. And finally, 4.) I know that there are only three other people in the entire world who will read and smile at the following phrases: “llama, mosquito!, newfoundland” “razor-back boar, shellfish..” & “xylotrope, yak, Zebra.”

The rest of the trip is now kinda a blur. It’s always interesting how true the following saying is: “It’s not the destination that matters, but the journey.”

Still, the destination deserves some description here. Although my ideal vacation in my mind has always included sand, crystal clear water & florescent colors, August in Montana was just as well. We got to spend the week in a gorgeous cabin situated right off of Hebgen Lake. Approximately 20 minutes from the West Yellowstone Park entrance, a hot tub & a boat, and eight others to share it with, we were never bored. After arriving from our long journey, we each chose our rooms reality-show-style, and what ensued from there was a week long string of events. Water skiing, hiking, swinging on the front porch reading, cool nights in the hot tub, visiting, cooking, eating, board games, games of frisbee, white water rafting, exploring Yellowstone.

Yellowstone. What is there to say? It truly is the most dreadful/beautiful place I have ever seen. I mean to say this in a positive way. Please do not misinterpret. If you have experienced it, then you may understand what I mean, though I am not sure. The company I was with during my visit did not seem to understand me at the time when I mentioned it mid-hike. It was so expansive and pristine. It was amazing to know that what I saw today, was what it looked like yesterday. Seeing the animals in their habitat. That was the beautiful part. Visiting all of the geysers and geological activity and the resulting impact on the land. That was the ugly part. Imagining what was going on underneath my feet made me shiver. While other tourists oohed and ahhed…I wondered.

In the end, it was a perfect vacation. We made new friends. Spent more time with old ones. We laughed a lot. Sometimes we cried.

It’s nearly midnight now. Geoff has already turned out his light, Bella’s sleep is quieter now.

It has taken a few days to settle in again, but it is good to be home.

No you dirty dirty people.
Somebody I know is raising money for breast cancer. Actually- a few people are, but this is the most recent one I’ve been made aware of.
You all know I helped coach for the U of O Ducks cheerleading squads. While my exit from the Ducks was pretty painful and left me more than a little bitter, I had the opportunity to meet some very cool people. A couple of the ladies and one or two of the gents have been very cool. I truly admire these folks for what they’re doing and their massive improvements in just a couple short years. Katelynn is one of those people whom I’ve never seen act like anything but a genuinely good person. When I first met the cheerleaders, of course they were nice to me. They smiled, they shook my hand, asked about my background etc. I didn’t spend much (if any) time with the dancers but I was introduced to them and was at their tryout as well. To be blunt, I didn’t get to know any of the dancers on a personal level and only a few of the stunters. Katelynn is a dancer so the fact that I’ve even kept in passing contact with her is odd.
But I did because she seems as though she actually cares about people. And apparently she cares enough to fly down to the Bahamas, get pictures taken, catch a fish bigger than her, and make a calendar to raise money for breast cancer research.

So- Buy a calendar from Katelynn. You get a pretty lady on the wall each month and get to feel good that you’re actually helping people. What more could you ask for?

Life will take you through many amazing journeys, one of which those journeys happened for me this July when I participated in a photo shoot in the Bahamas on a little place called Harbor Island. With four other beautiful and intelligent girls from around the states, and the best staff that anyone could ask for, it was very hard to say goodbye without taking a piece of their hearts in my own. That trip was a blessing and a trip that I will never forget or regret. From deep sea fishing and catching a 175 lb Marlin that took an hour to reel in, to the sore arm for a week after, to beautiful photos, to great memories, I suggest you take chances in life…they could turn out to be the best experience you have ever had.

Each of our pictures will be placed into a swimsuit calendar and sold with 100% of the profits being donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Being able to be a part of something that could potentially save someone’s life close to me is absolutely heartwarming and mind boggling. With beautiful pictures and a great cause behind it, I just wanted to personally give you the website where you can pre order your $15.00 calendar today. I would greatly appreciate if you could help in any possible way and I hope your life and loved ones around you are as good as can be.

God Bless.

Katelynn

HOW TO ORDER:
Website: http://www.campusgirlsusa.com/preorder09.php?cal=Pac10&ref=KatelynnJ
Referral: KatelynnJ
Select a Calendar: Pac 10

So it’s been a year. This is a leap year so we even got an extra day under our belts. Go us!
It’s been a hectic year and a very stressful year. We’ve had our trials and there have been times we’ve both wanted to throw the other one under a fast-moving train.
But we haven’t. I think that’s a major sign of success in a relationship. Even when you’re absolutely furious with your partner, you grit your teeth, count to ten (or 37) and deal with it. You don’t leave, you don’t give up, you don’t get abusive… you deal with it. We’ve both changed and we’ve both made concessions to the other. I’ve cooked a lot, she’s eaten a lot. I’ve made a lot of messes and she’s done a lot of cleaning. We’ve threatened the other’s pets’ lives. I’ve become very good at saying, “Yes, dear.” and she’s become quite adept at saying, “I’m the girl, that’s why.”
But we had a picnic in the park yesterday where we threw our frisbee around, ate some yummy food, played badminton, had a band concert, played some volleyball, took some weird pictures and laughed together a lot.

It’s been a year and I’m still so happy I married her. We still laugh with and at each other. We still hold hands when we’re driving somewhere. We flirt with each other. We have so much fun together and we are totally smitten. I wake up every morning, kiss her on the cheek and smile because the woman of my dreams is the woman of my reality and I revel in that every day.

I love you, Carley.

Just thought you all should know in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve tweaked our website a bit during the past couple of days.

Things to note:

1.) The saga of the gas strike continues and therefore we have removed the Saturn mileage tracker and replaced it with a Rav tracker, since that is the only car we drive now. Er, except for the occasional Sunday afternoon spin in the Supra that is. We will probably start tracking that soon though. I am proud to announce that we only needed to fill up once this month! We will update this religiously as this has really become fun for us…or maybe just me. Yah, probably just me. Geoff grumbles a lot. See new tracker just over there ——>

2.) I had Geoff create a Picassa online photo account for me and recently uploaded my favorite pics from the last four years into an album there. Check it out at the link to the right of our page under the “us” column. I will try to add pictures there occasionally to add to my rare blogs and link them all fancy like as Geoff does. Yes Geoff, this means that I will require IT assistance.

3.) Okay, this is my favorite update: we created a geoffandcarley channel at Youtube! We just have way too many hilarious video clips from our digital camera, so yeah. Plus we thought, why not join the crowd and pollute the web waves with nonsense videos? Many, many are of Bella, The Amazing Frisbee Dog!, but I came across many Cranium party video clips, that perhaps will only be funny to those who were there not to mention any names, but…Aunt Susan? Oh, we have some classic humdinger videos. Okay, no we won’t post videos of our friends and family on the internet..we save those for our personal computer and watch ‘em on nights when we forgot to put our previous netflix in the mail in time to get one for the following weekend and thus have nothing better to do on the weekends. (*He, he) So check out the link to the right called “Our videos” as another way to keep up to date with us. There’s only a couple of videos there currently, but many to follow.

Let us know what you think~

This weekend kicked my behind.
Friday was dinner and date night with my beloved wife then we went home and watched Enchanted. That movie was quite a bit funnier than I expected. While predictable and fairly shallow, it wasn’t too bad as far as chick flicks go. And I heart Susan Sarandon. She played the evil queen so well it was… evil.
Saturday I drove up to Beaverton to help Morgan hang drywall on his ceiling. That was friggin BRUTAL. Drywall = not fun. After all that time we weren’t able to get anywhere NEAR completion. That stuff is hard to work with. But it was fun to cut holes in Morgan’s roof for the ventilation. makes me feel very confident that I could do things like this in the future. We set up a couple decent rigs for lifting the panels up to the ceiling and while it was time consuming and difficult, it worked out pretty well and seems like it will get done soon. Here are pictures of Morgan’s continuing saga of garage resuscitation.
Sunday was awesome. Started the day with a 30 mile bike ride with Bob in the gentle hills near town. Bob is in far better shape than I and is about 80lbs lighter so hills didn’t rough him up the way they did me. he was kind enough to hold back on a couple hills for me to catch up. I felt great but I was ASTONISHINGLY hungry afterward. I think I ate more in the 6 hours after that ride than I have in the past two days. Thanks, Bob! awesome times.
Then Carley had a concert. We’ve been together over four years and this makes the third time I’ve ever heard her clarinet. Turns out she’s actually very good. Who knew? The concert was free at a local park and it was great to chill out under a willow tree listening to some good live music and know that my wife was up there making music for these people. The Russian piece, Opus 99 by somebody or other was my favorite but I’ve always been a fan of Sousa so his bits were good as well. I had a great time.
I also added a new link- one of my co-workers has a daughter who writes quite well from what little I’ve read and has a way with words I rather like so I added her blog at right.
All told it was a great weekend. I’m a pretty happy guy.

Okay…first of all, this must be said….”I was right”

He lost his ring, and I was right.

Okay, there it’s been said and posted for all the world to see.

However, it is not as pleasing/satisfying to be right in this situation because in the end he still lost it. And all I can picture is his ring on the bottom of some random Oregon river amongst a bunch of rocks forever…What kind of sign is this? Arg…had he just listened to me in the first place! For all his wonderful traits, he is a slow learner of the listening-to-the-wife-rule.

I feel obligated to remind everyone of the “bet” that was made shortly after the wedding between the two of us. After everyone had gone home, and we were beginning to settle into married life, a bet was arranged. The basics: I wagered that he would lose his ring, he bet that he wouldn’t. The loser would be put on cat duty (also known as litter box). A timeline was needed, and we settled on six months. In the end, the whole bet was that if he should lose his ring within six months of the wedding, he would have to do cat duty for the remaining time until the one year anniversary. However, should he not lose it within the six month time frame, I would be on cat duty until the anniversary. Mr. Best Man was there to witness the bet. You know who you are… This was a much talked about bet throughout the lovely first six months of marriage…with a few questionable close calls in which we referred to our close Oregonian friends to settle. In fact, there is a previous GeoffandCarley post on one such event dated November 8th, 2007. Seriously, you all got a chance to vote on it. Check it out to refresh your memory. In the end, he managed to hang on to that loose fitting ring all the way through the established cut-off date of January 28th, 2008. And I have been slaving away at cat duty ever since…mumbling and grumbling .(Okay, I fess up. I am a sore loser, and have not been 100% doing my duty. More like…eh, 15%? Thanks Geoffy for the remaining 85. Love you!)

Anywho, here I have been in the last six months still listening to the sound of that ring hit the bathroom floor, or bottom of the tub…watching with wide eyes at the precariousness of how it has been sitting on his finger. So, it really was inevitable that this should happen. In fact, I prepared myself for this situation when he opted for the uber-man-ring at the store, otherwise known as Tungsten, indestructible! How can I blame him? How could he resist? In man world he heard: indestructible! Meanwhile in the more practical girl world I translated: cannot be resized. I knew it would be lost eventually. Hence the bet. I was just wrong on the timeline.

The question I put before everyone now is this: What should we do now? I’m interested in your input. Of course, we will end up doing whatever we like…but I’m open for suggestions. If you will recall, when I prompted the salesperson last year about what to do when the ring was lost due to not being able to re-size it, he suggested and I quote, “Buy another.” Much discussion has ensued between the two of us as to what we should do and being the hopeless romantic that I am, I think that we should buy a ring in which can be re-sized in the future because years from now I would essentially like him to be wearing the same ring I gave to him at the beginning of our life together. Geoff on the other hand would like to go out and purchase the same exact ring he had, however this time around finaggle a plan with the store so that he can have coverage for replacements, etc. (Some friends of ours mentioned they have this set-up with their indestructible ring.)

Are there other ideas, thoughts, suggestions we are missing? Comments are definitely welcome. Also, comments on whether I can be taken off cat duty for the remaining two weeks of my sentence would be appreciated too. Even if I would only be relieved of the 15%. Much appreciated. Thanks!