Thirsty Thursday: It Rains in Portland

Rambler: BethDrink at Hand: Ventana Pinot Noir

Thirsty Thursday is here again! Time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. Tonight I'll share some photos from a recent trip to Portland.

This fall I decided to be ambitious and get myself one of those MBA thingies. I signed up for the Portland State online MBA program. This program requires the online MBA'ers to participate in an on-campus residency weekend each quarter, so once a quarter I have to go to Portland. When we were here in August for orientation I fell in love with Portland...it was warm and sunny and green and just plain beautiful.

Then I came back at the end of October. It rained. A lot. The whole time. I finally squeezed a little bit of free time out of the busy weekend on the final day of the residency weekend and wanted to go wander with camera...but it was pouring down rain. I went anyway. I got soaked. Luckily my camera has a rain cover.

Here's what I came away with. I can tell I've been busy with school. My skills are rusty. But its always nice to have the opportunity to go wander around without any distractions, just me and my camera.

All in all, it wasn't so bad. I didn't melt. Portland is still a cool city, even in the rain.

Get out there and wander in the rain (or sunshine if you're lucky) this weekend!

Massey Monday: Splash

So, there's only one picture this Monday and neither Beth nor I took it. Let me take a moment give you the background. We (i.e., the family) were out for a hike somewhere near Leadville, CO. The trail winded around a beautiful mountain lake and up the side of a mountain. Of course, the Masalicous was running up, down, and all around the trail. We hiked around the lake and up half of the mountain. On our way down, we decided to complete the hike around the other side of the trail. Massey, of course, has already gotten wet in some of the shallow parts of the lake, so she must know how cold the water is. And, then it happened. We were on a single track trail and a bird (probably a duck) flew over and she was off. . . determined to catch it. Unfortunately, for us, we lost sight of her in the tall grass. The bird, however, remained in plain sight. I think we all kind of had the same thought. . . that bird is headed for the middle of the lake. We could see the bird clear the grasses on the shore and then we heard it: SPLASH! I can only image the sight of a little brittany spaniel chasing a bird through some tall grass and leaping into the cold water in a last ditch effort catch the bird. The picture was taken by my Mom (Marie) when Massey decided to come back and let us know she hadn't caught the bird but that she had given it her all.

Happy Monday from Colorado!