City of Roses

As many of you probably know, Portland is the "City of Roses" - and for good reason. There are tons of roses popping up in the neighborhood and along side the freeways. The city is also preparing for the big Rose Festival next weekend. But what most of you don't know is that roses are very close to my heart as my Hebrew name, Shoshanah, means rose.

Before Matt leaves on Sunday for a long trip in the field, we decided to visit the Portland Rose Test Garden since many of the flowers should be in bloom. This is an amazing free garden with roses from all over the world. We were not disappointed! There were tons of roses in bloom and many not yet up. (I will definately go back in a a few weeks)
Here are some of the beautiful flowers we (and Lavi) enjoyed...









And one thing I try to do everyday of my life is to ...


Stop and smell the flowers!

Doggie overload

We had the "pleasure" of dog sitting Cringer (lab mix) and Mandy (chihuahua mix) over the Memorial Day weekend. Lavi had fun playing with them but was happy to have the place all to herself again once they left. Unfortunately it rained most of the weekend and much of our time was spent wiping off 12 paws...
Here is the gang.

Poor Namir was locked up in the basement or the bedroom most of the time. Although Cringer wanted to play, Mandy is predispositioned to go after him. Namir did take advantage of the times when the 3 dogs were outside. Here he is checking them out through the kitchen door.


Once they left, Namir was happy to chill in the living room once again. And chill he did.

He was also happy to play with his sister Lavi. One dog is enough for him.

April showers.... bring May flowers

I have been amazed by the beautiful flowers Lavi and I see every time we go for a walk these days. Here are a few of our favorites.  After living in San Diego for 10 years, which is very beautiful in its own right, I feel like my senses are coming alive with spring here in Portland.

April showers... bring May Flowers cont.

Mother's Day crafts

Happy Mother's Day to everyone. I found some time (not suprising since I am not yet employed) to make mini albums for my moms.
This one was for my mom, Maxine.

The picture on right was taken during our first cup of coffee in Costa Rica.

The page on the left is my favorite. It is a prime example of my mom's "wild" nature!


Here is the cover of the book I made for my mother-in-law, Kimberly. I really like how the walnut distressing ink made it look like leather.

These are a few of the pages I think came out well in this book.


And just because I love this picture of us :)


I really had a lot of fun making these. I also made some matching cards for all the mothers/grandmothers in our family, including Ann (aka Grammy), Lil, Robyn and Nadine.


Now I have to start thinking about what I am going to do for Father's day. I think there might be some high expectations out there...

And coming soon... examples of the amazing flowers Lavi and I walk past in our neighborhood every day.