Ohio Trip in July

In July, my brother's wife, Melissa, passed away from her difficult bout with cancer. It is especially difficult for him because he now has 3 young boys to raise on his own. We traveled home for a week to be with the family and attend the funeral. On a positive note, it is the first time all of us siblings have been together in 3 years since we all live in different states (and Karen in a different country). The kids (our 5 nephews and 4 nieces) are all growing up so fast too, so it was great to spend time with them.

hanging out at Mom and Dad's

having lunch at the Tearoom with Anna

The Carpenter kids take lessons on violin, viola, and cello so they played us a little concert out on the deck. It is awesome to see how much poise they have at such a young age!

matching dresses for cousins Anna and Abby...they seemed inseparable

Mom bought a snow cone machine, so you can only imagine how popular this was in the Midwest heat. Emily, Karen, and Kathy serve up the flavor!

snow cones = happy kids (and happy adults)

We went to the Preble County Fair to watch Logan show his cow.

the boys getting the cow ready for the show ring

the crowd

And no trip to the fair is complete without some really greasy food. One of my favorites is the Texas Tenderloin. I haven't had one of these in about 10 years.....and it was as good as I remembered. Sometimes it is the simple things in life that can bring back the most fond memories of childhood.

yes, the Texas Tenderloin is almost as big as a plate and it dwarfs the bun!

Overall the trip was great, but a mixed bag of emotions. It is always good to visit with family, however it is unfortunate that it was under such circumstances.

P.S. - I just had to throw in this pic of Mt Hood that I snapped from the plane window as we descended back home to Portland (still plenty of snow in late July).

Summertime in Portland

There's no better place to be than Portland in the summer. With low humidity and mild temperatures (70 during day, 55 at night), it really makes you want to spend every possible minute outside. Here are just a few of our favorite moments from this summer (when we have actually been in town):

The roses I planted last summer have been producing some nice blooms.

some have already grown taller than the fence; I guess the neighbors can enjoy them too ;)

I planted this one for its unique shade of red/orange blooms

this one has faint shades of pink on the edges of ivory petals

And what good is summer without some great friends to share it with? We had a BBQ with Em's MBA friends...several of them brought their dogs to enjoy the backyard.

We had a nomad visit us for a few days. His name is Chad Staker (my friend from H.S./college). He currently lives in Denver and is taking the summer off work to tour/camp around the country (and Canada) on his motorcycle. He custom built a bike rack onto his motorcycle so that he could go mountain biking along the way. With this setup, he fit in just fine as a Portland local while he was visiting.

We had another big BBQ this summer, with about 30 people hanging out in the backyard.

Our friends, The Mayas, returned from their trip to France and brought some fine wine, cheeses, and fois gras to share. I took over some fresh Oregon mussels and oysters. Their two young daughters, Eva and Ana, were intrigued by the smooth interior of the oyster shells. They kept playing with the shells. So cute.
Well summer is about half over (by my estimates, since we will have good weather into September), but we still have many more outdoor activities planned. We have to take full advantage of these good months before the winter rain hits again. We hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are enjoying ours! -Love, Brad and Em

San Fran and NYC

A few weeks ago, I went down to San Francisco for my MBA class sessions. Jon and Stacy graciously hosted me for the few days I was there. I love hanging out with them because they're foodies, and I enjoy great food! I have really enjoyed my classmates - they have made my MBA experience amazing thus far. It's a great group of intelligent, energetic, and fun people. I always look forward to heading to San Fran to get together with them. After spending 3 days in San Fran, I took off to New York City for a work trip. When I travel for work now, it will mostly be up in the Northeastern part of the U.S. since that's where my territory is for work. I can't complain - I love that part of the U.S! On this trip, I got a good tour of New York driving through all the burroughs and neighboring large cities! We first went to Binghampton, then drove to Long Island, then spent some time in Manhattan, went up to White Plains, and then wrapped up the trip in the city. I enjoyed some amazing food and got to see some great sights and meet up with Thom, one of my oldest friends from Northwestern days.

Jon and Stacy took me to an amazing ramen restaurant - well worth the 1.5 hour wait. It was delicious!
While up in the Yonkers/White Plains area, we went to a fantastic restaurant called X2O Xaviars on the Hudson where the chef is a James Beard award winner. The captain at the restaurant took us on a private tour after our meal, which included getting my hands on a $4,000 bottle of wine and his trophy located in his wine cellar.
There, I shared his award winning dish - the aged and grilled cowboy ribeye with sauce bearaise. It was just as delicious as it looks!
Before we left NYC, we stopped at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I took in some Van Gogh and Monet.

All in all, New York and San Fran were a great time - I haven't been away from home for a week and half except on international trips, so it was nice to finally arrive home after all the traveling.

Girls' Weekend in Minneapolis

Wow, I'm way behind on posts. Thanks mom for reminding me! Memorial Day Weekend, I used some frequent flyer miles to head to Minneapolis, Minnesota where Christal and Matt live to have a mini (and Minni"eapolis") girls' weekend. Of all places for a girls' weekend, Minneapolis was a great choice with the Mall of America! There was also plenty of good food and good fun. It had been awhile since we had seen Christal and Matt, so it was good to finally catch up and re-live old times. Thanks Christal and Matt for hosting Pauline and me!
The girls pre-sushi dinner :) And Christal, showing off her chopstick skills!
Christal and Matt. We didn't want to leave him out of all of the fun we were having that weekend!
We did a long walk one afternoon around one of the lakes by Christal's house. Minnesota is known for its plethora of lakes throughout the state.
And finally...the infamous juicy lucy burger. I think this was featured on Man vs. Food. Essentially it's american cheese sandwiched between two hamburger patties. It was delicious! The picture doesn't do it justice!

Boston - A Little Taste of History

About 2 months ago, I was assigned the Northeast territory for work, which includes the part of the U.S between Pennsylvania and Maine. We had a manufacturer training in Boston, MA a few weeks ago, so I took the liberty of spending an extra day there walking around the city. There was just so much to do and see all within walking distance; little bits of history could be found all over the city as well as public parks, markets, Chinatown, and great shopping. Below are some pics of some of the sights in my day tour of the city.
This is the Old State House right in the middle of the city. It was built in 1713 as the seat of the British colonial government and also the site where the Declaration of Independence was first read on July 18, 1776. Also, this is the site where the Boston Massacre occurred.
This is Paul Revere's house in the North End neighborhood (also known as Little Italy). There was some delicious Italian food to be had down the street from here as well as some amazing pastries (see further down in post).
This is Faneuil Hall, which can be found in Quincy Market. Nowadays, you will find a lot of tourist shops and eateries. Back in the 1700s, it was the site of several speeches by Sam Adams, James Otis, and others who encouraged independence from Great Britain.
Though it doesn't look like much now, this is the former site of the Boston Tea Party.
While I was walking around downtown, I came across a farmer's market. Besides the typical fruit and vegetables typically found at a farmer's market, they also had abundant amounts of seafood as well. I love the East Coast and its abundance of fresh seafood!
This is a good transition to food that I enjoyed in Boston. I grabbed a nice lunch of a lobster roll and clam chowder. Lobster rolls are popular in Boston; the lobster roll pictured above was delicious and contained big pieces of lobster.
Our manufacturers like to go all out at these work events. One of the dinners they hosted for us was a clam bake...but along with all the clams and clam chowder, they also served whole lobsters. It was delicious! I need to eat lobster more often...
I had heard one of the must-visit places in Boston was Mike's Pastry in the North End for its cannolis. I got an espresso and a pistachio cannoli as well as a pistachio macaroon to bring back to Brad for us to share. I would highly recommend this place if you visit!

Easter in San Francisco!

I was lucky enough to get to spend Easter weekend in San Francisco since my MBA program had a class session that weekend. Danny and Renee graciously opened up their home to me for the weekend and invited me to their Easter get together they had planned with some friends. Renee and I snuck out to hide some eggs while the kids were dyeing some eggs, and then the kids went for an Easter egg hunt! They really had a blast, and I loved watching them running around looking in all the hiding spots for the eggs. Below are some pics from that Easter Sunday.
Nina, showing me one of the eggs she got.
Naomi's best friend Maya came to the party. The girls were so cute together...obviously besties because here we see Maya feeding Naomi a jelly bean from the bunny cake you see in the background.
Nina was so excited to be able to dye some eggs!
In the morning, I couldn't find Naomi. When I searched, I found her in the upstairs hallway working on doing her hair for the party. She's got some talent!

It was tough leaving the girls...I loved hanging out with them. They have this tradition when guests leave to come to the front window and wave goodbye. It was the cutest thing and made me even more sad to leave.

Our last 2 days in China

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. After touring Nanjing, we headed back to Shanghai. Our flight back to the US was not until the next day, so we had some more time to explore Shanghai. Besides, we weren't ready to throw in the towel just yet...we still had a couple of items to cross off of our Must See List.

Nanjing Road (pedestrians only, in downtown Shanghai)

Jia Jia Tang Bao - Em had to go see the restaurant that bears her (former) middle name :)

next door to Jia Jia is an amazing dumpling place, Yang's Fried Dumpling, where you can get 4 of these for about 5 yuan (~$0.80, not a bad price for lunch)

OK, being a techie, I really really wanted to ride the Maglev train in China. It is the most technologically advanced train in the world. I remember as a child, I was fascinated to feel the invisible force when bringing two magnets of the same polarity in close proximity. I would try to push the magnets together against their will to get them to touch...but the magnets always won this battle. Well, the Maglev uses this principle to float a train above the tracks. As you can imagine, this brings friction to almost zero, which equates to a VERY fast and VERY smooth ride. Using this technology, the trains can reach speeds of 361 mph. Using this technology, China's public transportation infrastructure will leave the rest of the world in its dust! With the ability to easily use green power (from hydroelectric, solar, windmills, etc) instead of fuel and the use of regenerative braking (in which the energy dissipated from braking is fed back into the system, in a manner akin to what lets the Toyota Prius get great mpg), the Maglev has considerable environmental advantages and is well poised for the future. China has plans to use this system to connect some of the cities we visited, and they already have plans to build even faster trains. With speeds that will soon approach the speed of commercial aircraft, these trains have the potential to revolutionize travel. The best part, however, is the convenience: you can walk up, swipe your card, breeze through a quick security scan, and hop on, all in about 2 minutes. I challenge you to find an airport where you can do that (unless you are a billionaire with a private jet/helicopter, you have to purchase your ticket weeks in advance, pay hundreds of dollars, and then waste about 2 hrs in lines/waiting for each flight, not to mention the inevitable delays). Even just typing about air travel can make my blood pressure rise; it has to be the most inefficient system and worst business model ever, yet we all put up with it because we have no better alternative. A lot of this blame can be put on the US government for ridiculous security measures that rarely catch actual terrorist attacks, while inconveniencing millions everyday...but I digress.
Let's just say that China is moving in the right direction when it comes to public transportation, and the US (and most of the rest of the world) is quickly being left behind....and it seems the respective economies are trending this way too.
Oh, and BTW, the Shanghai Maglev has been in commercial operation since 2004.

the mascot for the China expo by the Maglev station

Cruising at 431 km/h (267 mph) on the Maglev, we went from downtown Shanghai to the airport in only 7 minutes!! A one-way ticket costs 50 yuan (~$7.50), well worth the experience/bragging rights.

At the airport and heading home, our China adventure quickly came to a close. Overall, it was an awesome trip, and I learned a lot more about China in one week than I had learned during the entirety of my schooling. It is safe to say that we will be returning soon to visit other cities (Beijing) and other historical landmarks (The Great Wall). Now if I could just find a way to weasel a few more vacation days from work...