Sorry for lack of updates, we just got back from our yearly trip back to the "motherland" of Minnesota. I'll probably write more this weekend, so I'll let some of the photos tell the story for now (will be adding captions later).
I also bought this beauty today!! It should arrive within two weeks. I'm stoked!
More news hopefully sometime next week. We shall see how motivated I get. 
For our anniversary, I attempted to recreate our wedding cake (top tier). You can see the original here. It was a good learning experience, except the silver frosting I had didn't work (looked like mud) and improvising kind of farked up the fondant border... but it tastes good. It's a lemon buttercream 3-tier cake (recipe).
All in all I was pretty satisfied with it. I'd love to take real classes to learn actual techniques.
We've had lots of fun the last couple of weeks. First my friend Jenny came in from Minnesota, so I was able to give her the grand Portland tour.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We had Micah's birthday at Greek Cusina on March 31, photos from that outing are great. But note to self: Everclear is BAD news! We got lost in the Smart Park garage and were jumping barriers and hoping not to be plowed down by decending cars. Puking in the Pearl district rounded out the night. Eek.
 
 
 
This past weekend, I attended a clothing swap party. The hostess was cool (and holy hyper!!), but Steph and I felt a bit out of our element as we're "old smug-marrieds" and most of the attendies were around age 20 and into different things. I got some cute pieces and was able to unload lots of old clothes that would've otherwise ended up at Goodwill.
Then we all drove (Jer, me, Steph and Rob) up to Seattle for Saturday and Sunday. We met up with one of Steph's friends who lived in the area and went to the yummiest restaurant I've been to in a LONG time, The Broadway Grill. It was soo yummy! We were able to be all silly and admire the c00t waiters!
 
 
 
We toured the city the next day, and Jeremy and Rob fell in love with this old gas plant that would make a cool evil scientist lab (and boys love to imagine that kind of thing). I had some painful cramps (oo yea for the blessed aunt flo) but once I was doped up enough on Aleve, I felt better.
 
 
 
 
 
Back in the homeland, I have lots of freelance work that came in, so I'm trying to coordinate that with my current work schedule. I'm also in lurve with Dane Cook, almost as much as Gavin, except for the posters (but he is my desktop!!).
In honor of my new ginamoog-ish hairstyle (holy$$ btw)! Click image to view entire set.
Ugh! Our poor neighbors… News video here.
I guess it came down right above their baby's room! Luckily everyone is okay, though... The fire dept. wants to take out the nearby trees too. The trees aren't in the vacinity to hit our house, thank goodness, but I still hope they take out the ones on that side. Jer and I were both thinking separately within the past few days that "Man it would suck if one of those trees fell down on that house!" Eerie.
Please, pray for the family; they have to stay in a hotel while dealing with all this. I'm sure claiming on insurance is going to be a real thrill too. Oh, and I'm hoping no rain comes soon! It would be bad to add flooding to their list of issues.