Tired Are We?

I warned him that he would be worn out after his two days of over-stimulation....but I guess he had to figure it out himself!

I'm an Aunt!

Proud Uncle
She was finally born! My oldest brother Nathan and his wife Pamela had their first baby last Saturday, February 23rd at 4:35. She is 7lbs 7 oz and 18.75 inches long. She is beautiful and came out with this perfect little round head and head of dark brown hair. Her name is Anastasia Jae Davis. Quite the name for such a little girl. It was great because Pam was induced on Friday and it was my weekend on at work at St. V's so I got to pop up to the 3rd floor quite a bit and say hi and check in. I saw her right after she was born when she was so wide awake. It was awesome and a little weird to see my brother and sister (in law) become parents and my parents become Grandma and Grandpa. Here are the pics I have. The room was dark so the flash had to go off, but I'll be sure to post more pictures soon!

Proud Grandma and Grandpa

Then off to Seattle on Sunday to visit my prego friend Kelly and her husband Jason. Sleep is for the weak! It was great to see the Howers, it's been way too long. Kelly is 28 weeks pregnant with her first little boy, and is also the first of our group of friends to take the plunge into motherhood. She is showing quite a bit and is every bit a cute pregnant person! It was awesome, I got to feel the baby kick. She is due May 15th, and I will become an Aunt times 2, I guess we are packing it all in this year! We had good times eating (Kelly has to feed the baby, and I just like to eat), taking Reuben and Tess, Jason and Kelly's dog to the dog park, going to Kelly's book club, and not to forget the most important, hearing about Jason's theory on his new "time system" ;-) He is convinced that if he has two PhDs he will surely be able to convince people to switch over.

Reuben and Tess

Kelly and I (I will post a preggers pic the next time)

So back to work and then off to Canada with Marcus and Mark on Friday. Stay tuned for a trip report next week! Oh and Reuben makes for a good copilot :-)

The fearless leader ... and ... a few minutes later

Making the Best of the Shrimp Chimichanga

So the goal for Sunday-Monday was to go up to Darrington, WA to do the second ascent of the NE Face of Three Fingers. The approach to the climb starts at the end of a road outside of the town and is about three miles to the start of the route. While potentially a little warm, the last few days were one of the first weather-windows we have had in a while. The route was put up by our friends John and Dave last winter and is pretty impressive. It involves pitches of amazing ice and a short mixed section at the top (their route is the last pic in the previous entry).

Anyway, we drove up North about 4 hours dropping off Reuben in Olympia, only to find the road was not only plowed but they had stopped with quite a large berm at the end of where it was maintained. We were already pushing it regarding time as we really needed to get a good look at the route before our alpine start in the morning, and hiking the road would have added ~5 miles onto our approach. After a few exercises in futility and then some pointless "discussion", we decided to bag it.
Exercises in futility

We drove back home, picking up Reuben and spending some quality time with my parents. One important note is don't order the shrimp chimichanga from "La Hacienda" in Arlington, WA. Well.....actually don't order anything from that restaurant at all. It left both of us with a bad taste in our mouths....mostly of shrimp that may have been left unrefrigerated for over a week.

And thus ended my 25th birthday................................

Monday, we woke up late, really late, 12:30 late, but decided to drive up to White River Canyon for some snowshoeing. Reuben loved it and is very, very tired now. Such a pretty bluebird day, I'm really glad we went up there. While it wasn't as hardcore as previously planned all three of us had a great time! We ended off the evening in Hood River at Horsefeathers, Hmmm beer and sweet potatoe fries. And Daniel will be angry if I don't add that he beat me at scrabble by 73 points. I mean shoot, he was even telling the waitress, who I'm sure was impressed :-p

Maybe We're Just Not Yard People

Hi!

I decided maybe I would try to update this thing each week with what we've been up to. Mainly for selfish reasons I suppose, It's hard for me to remember what I did yesterday half the time, let alone what I did a year ago! I'm always impressed at people that can tell these really vivid stories from their childhood. I feel like every so often someone just shoots me up with versed and erases my memory :)

Anyhoo, I digress. Daniel and I began our week in a very self-gratifying way at the Patagonia sale. Let's just say that we may have a slight problem and/or are definitely outfitted for quite a while in the down jacket/vest department. The term "we have to get it, it's such a good deal" goes a long way in our family!

We decided to do the whole Valentine's Day thing on Tuesday night as we were both going to be working. While I don't totally buy into the whole Hallmark holiday, Dan and I have been working really hard to do a date night each week, and I guess, truly, valentine's day is the mother of all holidays for a date night. I have to give Daniel kudos, it was his turn to plan and he did an amazing job. We started off the evening at Portland City Grill for happy hour. For those of you who don't know the PCG is on the 30th floor of the US Bank tower (I think) in downtown PDX. The bar area has a killer happy hour menu and panoramic windows so that you can see all of Portland. Oh, and did I mention the live piano music too? It's really a great place, both for dates and for friends. The only caveat is that at times elbows need to be thrown in order to get prime seating....it is not uncommon to see shifty-eyed people trolling around trying to gauge how close you are to being done with your dinner so that they can snag your table. But we were there early enough that life was great and it was good times. Then we went to a restaurant called 23rd and Hoyt, which oddly enough is on 23rd and Hoyt. All I have to say is that their Spanish coffee was to die for. They use Stumptown coffee (which is the best coffee I have ever had, hands down, roasted fresh every week in PDX) and it was soooo good. The food was good too, but the drink was the highlight for sure. Finally, we went to Fenouile for desert. I had never been but it's this really cool French restaurant right by Jameson Park. We had the Maison Glace (Ice cream for those of you who were smart and took Spanish rather than French in high school; beautiful language, but have I ever used it? No.). It was quite tasty, I'm excited to go back there and try dinner sometime.

Then work, because well....you gotta do that sometimes. Which brought us to Friday...which started out with "operation plant roses". They were sent bareroot and needed to be placed in soil by day 5 and I'll bet you'll never guess what day Friday was. So I hauled myself out of bed much earlier than my body wanted (I worked Thursday night) and started digging. Our soil has a lot of clay in it so digging holes for four plants turned out to be pretty much an all afternoon affair. Daniel was awesome and earns a "best husband ever" award for pretending to care about something that I'm 100% sure he didn't give a rats a$$ about. Perhaps it's his punishment for working all weekend this last fall when my family and I planted trees and landscaped.

I think after almost two years of marriage he's beginning to learn that if his wife says "I'm overwhelmed" it behooves him to take action prior to the meltdown actually occuring. Needless to say, the roses are in the ground and look good, or as good as they can look at this point in time. I'm excited to see the fruits of our labor this spring! I think the quote of the day was by Daniel about three hours in when he said "maybe we're just not yard people". I think it's quite true. Reuben however is a "yard dog" or atleast a very attentive helper and was very pleased that we too finally shared in his joy of digging and getting dirty.

Reuben, the proud owner of a pile of dirt, would like to think that he created this himself...but don't tell him that he mostly just got in the way :-) Can anyone say brown-noser?

Then off to the shower and to my 25th birthday dinner at the Siam Society (my actual birthday is on Sunday).! It was a great time with wonderful friends and great food and drinks. What a turnout too, ~23 people I believe. It's times like this that I am reminded how blessed I am to have such amazing friends and family! I'm mad that I forgot to take some pics! Thank you all so much for coming!!! It was great to see you all, I only wish I had more time to catch up with each one of you. Perhaps we should have followed through on Leslie's idea of a speed dating type seating arrangement where after five minutes everyone shifted one to the right :-) Like usual after these types of things, Daniel and I left talking about how we have such a crazy group of friends, laughing about funny and loving stories of each one of you, and thinking "man, we really need to spend more time with all of these people"! It's because of all of you that I think we're staying in Portland for quite a long time :-)

So that was our week in blogformat. Tomorrow it's off to Three Fingers in Washington for some hopefully successful alpine climbing. It's the first in a long while due to avalanche danger being so bad, I'm excited to get out and use the ol' crampons again! Stay tuned for a report on our trip.....

~Elisif

A New Leaf

I'm not sure why t happened, but either through talking myself into the idea that I was too busy or that it would be too difficult, I stubbornly refused to learn how to update the blog Daniel created a year or so ago. But a few very rare but slow nights at work have made me rethink my stance. The result you might ask....well, here it is, the new and improved (I hope) Team Harro blog. And with it's renovation I would also like to insert the promise in writing (and it is one so many of us have made), that I will be diligent at keeping this updated. So if you read it, I will write it, and that is all that needs to be said about that.



I can't decide the form that this blog should take on. Of course it is an avenue for us to post our adventures, but what else? Should it be an update on thoughts and feelings, or a mere glimpse into what we do each week. Someone recently asked me what I do on my five day stretches off, and during that week , all I could say was crossfit......and then I remembered that I had done some laundry. It's crazy how life just kind of keeps racing away around you, whether you want to slow down or not. And especially with nightshift, whether you want to sleep or not.



But since I'm posting this at work, and can't post pictures since I have none I will give you the ramblings of my head, and my head alone, and see where it takes me.



I fear I'm having a 1/4 life crisis, and while you and I know that's ridiculous, I feel like there is so much more out there to do that I haven't done, so much to see that I haven't seen. And yet a huge part of me craves the stability of my full-time job with benefits and retirement,and the comfort and simplicity of my down comforter in my queen size bed. To find the happy medium, happy being the keyword, is my goal this year. And if you want, and I hope you do, come along for the ride.



`Elisif