Found!
J woke me this morning to tell me that our front door had blown open in the night and Fergus had escaped and was missing! Our cats are strictly indoor cats and Fergus especially (bless his stupid heart) has no "street skills" so I was very worried. We spent about an hour searching the neighborhood and calling his name before J had to go to work. I made up some fliers for the poles in our immediate neighborhood. As the hours ticked by, I was convinced I'd never see him again. Michelle suggested that instead of walking around calling for him, I just sit quietly on the front porch and wait. She said it sounded weird but had worked for them when their cat went missing. I tried it, sitting with some ginger ale and my book, and after an hour and a half he came running up the alley happy to be home! He's dirty and scared and will most likely need to sleep off his little adventure.
Sick all day. Horrible. When I get sick I feel like I will stay that way forever, even though I know that can't be true. A little ginger ale before bedtime helped...
Tonight we went to see Harry Potter in IMAX. On the hottest freaking day of the year, we waited outside in line for over an hour. J, of course, passed the time working on his windows mobile phone. This is the face he has on when he works on his windows mobile phone. It's part concentration, part mild concern, part frustration I think.
Then, he catches me photographing him "at work".
Just a little fern near my table at lunch.
Our last day at the beach house, I owed Susan a portrait session of her dogs in exchange for my bicycle that she gave me last year and because she always lets us stay at the beach house and because she's awesome and I would do it for her anyways. But, she wanted me to photograph her dog Annie who is, I think, 14 years old. 
Family photos wrangling dogs are even harder than ones with three year olds and babies.
We decided to sit and watch the sunset from the dunes. It wasn't a particularly good sunset, but it was a nice thing to do anyways.
Finally, some super handsome pictures of Wally! He's been on the blog before but usually in low-light-blurry-sad-faced conditions. He was so happy and excited to be off-leash on the beach.
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S'all.
Second stop, lunch!
First stop on the way down the coast, Ft. Clatsop National Memorial where 
Camping coffee was good, and I think our little minimalist foray into camping alone was a success. I was sad it was only for one night though and after another bike ride it was time to break camp and hit the road.
Firemaster strikes again! I am so amazingly good at making fires. Last night, after dinner, a raccoon stole our marshmallows off the table so there were no s'mores for us this camping trip. This morning, I built another awesome fire so that we could use our ONE POT to boil water for french press coffee.
Ft. Stevens is a great state park right on the water. It has a lake, forests, beach access (with it's very own shipwreck) and nine miles of paved bike trails through nature that were just awesome. The beach was really really socked in with fog though. It's not hard to see how a ship could run aground in bad weather here. This is the 
So, in recent years, J has had to work remotely every time we go on vacation. It sucks but it's part of life right now unfortunately. So, I usually spend the day driving and making silent hand gestures while he spends the day having horrible work conversations on the phone. I took his picture while he worked at the coffeeshop. This is one of his expressions that I love though.
The latest installment in the "J Drinking Coffee" Series.
It's a cute little place. And they brew a wicked Stumptown hairbender.
For one of our usual summer vacations, we head down to the beach house in Oregon with T, M, and S. It's a long drive so I prefer to go the scenic route along the coast and break it up with stops. This time, J and I are going to camp for one night outside of Astoria. We have never camped alone before. We have always gone in the protection of 
This is photo #900 in the photo-a-day-project.
I finally finished the "Mushroom Skirt", named for it's cute mushroom pattern - not the cat, that I've been working on for weeks. It was supposed to be a 5 minute skirt - ha! It's filled with mistakes (not the least of which is that I cut the pattern upside down) but I don't care. I will definitely be wearing this all weekend at the beach.
In our house, we affectionately refer to this particular "face" of mine as "The Full Marathon Face". Meaning, the full-on completely ridiculous expression that I put on ONLY at the finish line of big races. This is almost identical to the photo from my marathon finish from 4.5 years ago. It's horrible and unflattering, but my face never lies and this is what it says at the end of the race. Oddly enough, I never even feel like I am smiling, I always feel like I am running hard and looking awesome.
