Cats in the morning

They eat and then they often sit in this exact position and stare at me while I eat.  Sentinel sits on top of the chair, Antares underneath.

Vintage Cakes

More good cakes from Vintage Cakes.  Burt had a birthday party for all of the February birthdays.  I volunteered to make cake.  Burt said that would be nice, then told me he didn't really like cake, mostly due to the frosting.  So for him, I picked out the Kentucky Bourbon Cake.   Then I got confused at the liquor store and bought whisky instead of Bourbon.  So this happens to be the Kentucky Whisky Cake.

I bought the pan specially.  Nice, eh?

For the frosting fans, I made the Black and White cake, which is a chocolate cake with vanilla bean butter cream frosting and homemade chocolate ganache kisses.

Vintage Cakes is serving me well.

Will you be my V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-E?

To celebrate the made up holiday that neither of us is really that enamored with, we decided to make and decorate cookies.   Here are cookies waiting to be decorated.

Here are finished cookies.

Matt holds up some of his best work.

I hold up some of my best work.

Mom's birthday Celebration

Mom's birthday celebration scheduled for Sunday, was moved to Monday due to ice.  Here we have a delicious birthday lunch.  Cowboy steak, biscuits, twice baked potatoes, and steamed vegetables.

I made the cake and it was so fun to cut into.

Such a dramatic cake!

Once more into the breach!

Burt and Laurie invited us over to play games.  They live about a mile away, so we had another pleasant walk in the snow.

Bundled up and ready!

Icicles on the Motel.

A hearty cross country skier and his dog.

This smart car was avoiding ice trapping his windshield wipers.  Smart!

An unmarred driveway.

Steps being engulfed.

Evidence of sledding.

We played Settlers of Catan (and ate delicious grilled cheese and tomato soup).  Then I walked home and Matt stayed to play more games.  He ended up staying the night and most of the next day due to ice.

Sledding

This blurry picture is to point out that we have no sleds, so we are using cardboard.

This blurry picture is a failed attempt to capture Matt coming down the hill.

This picture is of Matt.

Here I am sliding down the hill.

Matt attempts the jump.

We are both covered in snow.

Hark! It's that rare sight:  a snow plow!

There is snow caked on the inside of my pants.

And on the outside.

Portland Center Stage: Chinglish

The Armory, where Portland Center Stage performs, used to be an actual Armory.  Here were are posing in front of one of the skinny windows upstairs.

Matt, looking out over the crowd below.  I learned (by watching someone else) that you don't stand next to the rail in an A-line skirt unless you want the people below to see your underwear.

The crowd below!

The play was quite funny and it was subtitled, both in English and Chinese.  I found the set design (a strength of this theater) to be very fun. I recommend you catch it if you enjoy humor and culture clashes.