Julia and Jacob: Wedding Fantastico: Keeping the madness on the court

So it's March already! Here in Portland it feels like spring is really trying to make its presence known, while the Eastern part of the country still struggles with a rentlentless late winter and, in some cases, an uncharacteristic winter that involves snow?!

While we here keep our fingers crossed the mild temps and dry weather hold over for the next month, no promises can be made. If you are a stranger to the Pacific Northwest, think foggy & damp. We suggest bringing a jacket, preferrably something with a hood. Check out the weather tracker added to the sidebar.

February has been full of all kinds of non-wedding excitement. Jake's been keeping busy with a new semester of students & new songs to learn, plus he's still managing to squeeze shows with Atole. Indeed, they had two this month - one at the East End on Feb 13 and another on Feb 25 at Backspace. The Backspace show was almost a bust - with their bass player falling ill that week. Fortunately, the band pressed on, and they were able to pull together a lively slightly-improvised set with the help of a special guest member that kept the crowd gyrating in their assorted & stylish boots. If you're local reading this, the next show is this Friday, March 5 @ Branx.

For V-Day, it was a cooperative one: my contribution to the day was an ice skating trip (most likely inspired from hockey season in full swing). Later, Jake took us to dinner at Fenouil. Being my first time there, I had high expectations, and, while everything was prepared well, the overall *food* experience was not one I'm clamoring for immediately. There are just too many darn good restaurants in this town! Stay tuned for more of that in an upcoming post.

Both the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics and the Valentine's ice skating trip invigorated us, even inspiring Jacob to develop "a new appreciation for winter sports." We followed most of the big names over the Olympics, fostered a strange attraction to curling, got loud for the men's hockey (okay, maybe just me), and overall wowed by almost anything involving arial stunts and snow. Go Harry Potter, er, Simon Ammann!

The most exciting news of the month isn't our own, but rather our friends, Nate and Penelope, who became parents just less than two weeks ago! We are so happy for them and cannot wait to see more of the littlest lady, Bell Lu, and her parents. That is of course, if she ever takes a break from eating! Oh, babies.

One final note & a plug for our neighborhood: we're getting a new neighborhood library just walking distance from our house! The grand opening is March 8. Go Kenton. This also proves I am my mother's daughter, getting excited about a public library.