Spring!

Hello family! We had a fantastic visit from Mom and Dad the weekend before last and are beginning to enjoy the spring sunshine that they brought up with them.Signs of spring are all around us and we are hoping you snow bound or season-less folk are enjoying this time of year as much as us Portlanders.

One part of spring that has been especially great this year is observing all the changes that are taking place at our new house and neighborhood. Some of work from last year is beginning to pay off as well. The side of the house is abloom with tulips and daffodils and the necta-plum we planted in the front had a few blooms on top. Hopefully we will get some fruit.

The afore mentioned necta-plum blooms.

In between our garden beds we planted a half-wine barrel full of herbs.

Back to the visit last week: Here is Mom posing for a photo for my phone.

We didn't let them stand around for long. Before we let them enjoy Portland we had them do some serious work. We chopped down the tree in front of our house. It was a noble aged tree. Our octotarrian neighbor mentioned how it had been there for as long as she had been next door, some forty years or so, right Alisa? We also put together and stained some adirondack chairs and table we found at home depot for the front porch.

After all the work they insisted on taking a bit of a nap. I still had a long list of chores for them to do, but I suppose they earned a few winks. 

We had some great meals and great times! Capping off their visit, we went to a funky little Portland restaurant called "Ned Lud." Portland's version of fine dining. It was a fantastic meal! 

While there I spotted a pretty famous dude, Harry Shearer, the "it goes to 11" guy from Spinal Tap for those that are familiar. Behind that incredibly goofy awkward smile is him. I had Alisa take this snap-shot to, hopefully unobtrusively, document the spotting. 

Mom bought us and them matching gerber daisy's. We are going to have a plant-off to see who can out garden whom. I think she already gets bonus points for "smuggling" hers across the border. OK, it turned out they didn't care about plants.
 
Hope you are all doing great!