Work Holiday Party

My work is known for throwing great Holiday Parties and this year was no exception. They hosted the party at the Portland Art Museum in their Sunken Ballroom, which has a very Grecian feel to it. The Holiday Party is always fun because I really love the people I work with, food is good, drinks are flowing, and there's always great entertainment for the evening. This year, I also won big in the raffle! If you know me, I never win anything...I'm still holding on to my last big raffle win of 4 tickets behind home base for a Cardinals game...in 8th grade. Besides a gift card to Barnes and Noble, I won a prize where I get 5 Starbucks beverages delivered to my desk AND an extra day of paid time off! Maybe this is a sign that I should try my hand at the lottery?
Scott (far left) and Laura (2nd from the right) are my 2 closest friends at work...and their spouses are wonderful too. Laura and Suzette (Scott's wife) both had babies this year...hopefully I'm not next.
Obligatory formal picture - but hey, I got extra raffle tickets just for taking this pic :)
A great picture to give you an idea of how pretty the room was.
We had live entertainment for the evening...they played the music we all love dancing to...
Hence this picture...some of us really got down (note the 2 co-workers laying on the dance floor showing off some of their moves)

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all a very Happy Holidays from the Ulrich family!

Love,

Brad, Emily, Rolo, and Spot

Thanksgiving, Part II, San Francisco

Being one of our favorite holidays, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving again (and give it another blog post), but this time with family. Emily's brother Jon lives near San Jose so we jumped a quick flight on Thanksgiving day to join her parents and other brother Chris. It was nice to get a break from the Portland rain and enjoy slightly warmer weather and sunshine. We spent 4 wonderful days hanging out with family (Em's cousin Renee and her family live in nearby San Francisco) and eating some amazing food. I even got to meet up with an old grad school buddy, Mark Witschi, who just started a job in San Fran.

hanging out with the parents in Chinatown, S.F.

the full crew ready for yet another family-style feast

Since we are not sure how long it will be when we can all get together again, Christmas came a little early this year. :)

Naomi opening her gifts...it's always so fun to see kids open presents at this age

all of the girls (minus Nina) pose for a quick pic

Naomi modeling her new Hello Kitty backpack and lunchbox

Nina was just getting over being sick so she needed a little help from mom to rip the paper open

story time

Jon and Stacy did an excellent job showing us all the best restaurants in town. Every meal was great, and it was fun getting to share the experience with family. The best one, however, was a restaurant where the chef was the former chef for the President of Taiwan. Not only did the food taste phenomenal, the presentation was beautiful as well. Here are some of our favorite dishes:

shrimp salad served in lettuce bowl

pork perfectly garnished with tomato and cucumber

Peking duck stuffed with rice

Japanese pumpkin stuffed with pork

On Sunday, we took a short road trip 1.5 hrs south to Monterey. I determined this could be a top retirement spot....someday. It hosts many small shops and restaurants and gets copious amounts of sunshine. We spent the day strolling around town. It was a relaxing way to spend the holidays.

Monterey Bay

Monterey is home to the famous Cannery Row....for all you Steinbeck fans

Sadly, all good things come to an end. We departed for home on Monday night with full bellies and warm hearts.

Also, I just HAD to throw in this random pic from the San Jose airport...it's a trippy rotating sculpture that looks like a figment of Orsen Welles' imagination. As it spins around, you will notice that the mouth contains a screen....with YOU on it! The legs suggest it could walk, while the wings suggest it could fly. Perhaps it is really an alien disguised as art?

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hosted our 3rd annual Portland Thanksgiving dinner. It has turned out to be a wonderful tradition with some of our closest friends in Portland. A few months ago, we got a new dining table with this event in mind...a table that can seat 10 people comfortably. Hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving and is able to spend it with friends and family!
Table/group shot after round 1 of eating.
The spread. We realized that we're becoming more "mature" lately with how much more sophisticated our food gets each year we host this event.
We had some new additions to our group this year. Laura and David have become really close friends of ours. They recently had a new addition, Aiden William. Glad we could be a part of his first Thanksgiving!

Catching up over the last few weeks

Not much has been going on over the last few weeks, hence the combined blog post. I have been busy at work transitioning into my new role of Finance Manager, but have been able to squeeze a few things in after work. Last week, one of Brad's co-workers had 2 extra tickets to the Trail Blazers game against the Denver Nuggets. He is a season ticket holder, so the seats were pretty close to the court.

The Trail Blazers battling it out for a win over the Nuggets despite not having Greg Oden or Brandon Roy in the game (due to injuries).

This past Monday evening/Tuesday morning, we got some snow in Portland! It's actually just a light dusting, but nonetheless it was a snow day for schools and some companies on Tuesday. The biggest concern isn't really the snow...it's the black ice that is usually hiding underneath the snow...and Portland drivers who don't know how to drive in snow.
Dean, a friend of ours from Northwestern, came to Portland for work. We went out one evening to the Departure, the top floor of The Nines Hotel. The views were great from up there and it was a perfect night to sit outside on the balcony.

Making our home feel like home

Over the last year, we've been hanging pictures and decorating around the house to make it feel more like home. One of my favorite projects we've taken on this year is getting all of my grandfather's calligraphy and grandmother's paintings custom framed and hung throughout the house. It took the course of a year to get this accomplished because of the cost of custom framing nowadays, but it was well worth it. Below are some pics of the artwork.

Flowers in the backyard

Now that Fall is upon us, I figured now would be the time to update our blog with some pics of the flowers that bloomed in our backyard this past Summer.

Our hydrangeas starting to bloom
Brad planted several rose bushes during the Spring. They turned out gorgeous - I love my pinks :)

Frank Lloyd Wright

Last week, I had my last business trip in my Senior Business Analyst role...I have started the transition at my company to be a Finance Manager! Of course, I had to go off with a bang - so I chose to go on a work trip to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is about 40 min. north of Tulsa. On our flight out, we had clear skies and I was able to get a good view of Mt. Hood on the way out. Yes, there's already snow (over 30 inches now!) and one of our ski parks actually opened a few weeks ago.


Also in Bartlesville is the only skyscraper Frank Lloyd Wright ever worked on as an Architect. My coworkers had no clue who he was, but because of my roots in Chicago and an Architect brother-in-law, I was definitely soaking it in.

Part of the building has been converted to a hotel. I opted my group out of the usual Hilton hotel for a piece of history ;)

Mountain Biking in Moab, Utah

My friend from high school, Chad Staker, emailed me last month inquiring about a possible mountain biking trip to Moab, Utah. I had long dreamed about riding the world famous Slickrock Trail in Moab, so it did not take much convincing for me to say yes.
Flying with a bike and camping gear seemed to be a big hassle, so I decided to make it a road trip. It was pretty easy to get Kern and Sean (a friend from work) to join the trip. We set out on a Wednesday after work and roadtripped 1,100 miles straight through the night from Portland to Moab in my old 4Runner. Chad woke up the next day and left from Denver to meet us there early Thursday afternoon.

We got a short ride in Thursday before the sun went down:

riding the famous Slickrock Trail in Moab

We were lucky to snag the last available campsite (out of over a hundred sites, only one left!)

our campsite, located about 0.25 mile from the trailhead

We woke up early on Friday to ride the full 12 mile Slickrock Loop.

Kern, Sean, Chad, and I

Sean hits an endo for the camera

The trail lies precariously close to the edge of a canyon down to the Colorado River. My Ray Bans broke, so I had to bust out my Old Skool Oakley wraparounds from the 90's. :)

Sean powers up a hill that proved too steep for the Jeep crew below.....we all (barely) made it up this torturous climb, causing the Jeep crowd to actually cheer for us! It is amazing how much traction you can get on the sandstone; you are limited in what you can climb only by endurance and strength.

Sean poses for a panoramic shot

We finished the trail in the early afternoon and were exhausted, but not ready to call it a day. We decided to take Chad's Tacoma out for some 4X4 action. I was too paranoid to take my old 4Runner out....mainly for fear that if it breaks down, it is a LONG ride back to Portland.

the view from the cab as Chad drives up Hell's Revenge...there's not much room for error

driving down a fin at Hell's Revenge

getting vertical - the back tires are barely touching the ground

up to the doors in water....Chad at his best :)

random lizard on our firewood at the campsite

At night, we donned headlamps and did a quick night ride on the Slickrock. It was probably not the smartest or safest thing I have ever done.
I took a break and let the others disappear into the night. I laid alone, with my back on the sandstone, which was still warm from the day's sun. As I stared up at the stars, I had a surreal experience akin to nirvana. Just me and nature...at one....in peace and harmony. Utter silence and indescribable natural beauty all around me. I contemplated spending the entire night there on the rock.

On Saturday, we rode the Porcupine Rim trail for some technical, rocky singletrack. The trail starts with a 4 mile climb, gaining 1000 ft elevation.

This climb reminded me how seriously out of shape I am!!

Chad and Sean enjoying the view at the top of the climb

the view at the top

Our efforts during the long climb were more than rewarded with a 12 mile descent into the canyon. This is definitely the best trail I have ever ridden....it has lots of tough sections and plenty of places to get the adrenaline flowing strong.

Kern cautiously navigates a turn...no worries, the canyon two feet to his right is ONLY a 2000 ft drop straight down to the Colorado River.

this would be your last view if you miss a turn on the Porcupine Rim Trail

Chad found just the right spot to setup for a photo....he figured one of us would biff....and he was right. It was me. This pic is about 0.1 seconds before I went flying over the handlebars.

OK, now I am managing to keep 2 wheels on the ground

The trail dumped us out in the valley below. We had a few miles of light cruising through the valley with stunning views before having to ride back uphill to the campsite.

Kern and I ran out of water and severe fatigue was setting in. The last several miles were a steep uphill climb and we were seriously hurting. We had covered a total of 26 miles of terrain and just wanted to make it back to the campsite. Luckily, Chad was a true friend and picked us up in the 4runner about 0.5 mile from the campsite before I almost had a heat stroke.
We had originally planned to stay another night, but instead decided that Moab had already done enough damage to our bodies so we packed up our gear and started the trip home. We left Moab Saturday evening, drove through the night again, and returned to Portland around noon on Sunday. With 3 days of riding and 4 days without a shower or running water, it felt good to be home.

I think we all agreed the trip was epic; Moab definitely deserves many more visits.