The Seifert Hobbins Family

Well yesterday Georgie turned two and the second year seems to have twice as fast as the first. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by the last year that Nikki and I haven’t talked about something Georgie did that just amazed us. Every day is such a wonderful adventure with her.

I didn’t get to see Georgie as much as I would have liked yesterday but Nikki did a great job making her feel like the birthday girl all day. She took her to a party store and let her pick out what kind of cake she wanted (orange) and what kind of balloon she wanted (dolphin). Then they made a rainy day fun by splashing in puddles.

By the time she got up from her nap, Uncle Adam was here. Adam thought it might take her a few days to warm up to him but she was in his lap in about five minutes, asking for stories and playing with his watch.

She spent all of the afternoon giddy with excitement. After dinner, we showed Georgie her new big girl bed right next to ours. She was very excited about it. As soon as she saw it she said, “Georgie snuggle in it!”

Later on, she continued to be so excited about her new bed (and her birthday and Uncle Adam, and being fueled with sugar) that she couldn’t get to sleep until 10:30.

I’m not sure what the rest of the weekend holds. Uncle Adam and I were going to go fishing near Shenandoah but it’s pretty rainy and it turns out that Virginia trout licenses are rather expensive for non-residents. We’ll see how that turns out.

What I do know is that this next year is going to be just as amazing as the last one and go by even faster. Nikki and I both feel like Fred Flintstone digging our heels into the ground, trying to slow down time.

So Happy Birthday to Georgie, our sweet, clever and hilarious two-year-old!

We still have some pictures to post from our Portland trip, but I was having trouble with Picasa and iPhoto for older pictures. I will try again to post pictures, but in the meantime, check out Darla, Steve, and Annie’s blog for some pictures of Georgie and Annie–including a recent post with Georgie and Uncle Steve doing some gardening/planting).

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All of the kids in the playgroup have birthdays between January and April, so this week’s playgroup was a birthday party for all the kids — a good warm-up for Georgie’s upcoming birthday party.

It wasn’t exactly warm today but it was at least sunny so Georgie and I went down to Founders’ Park in Alexandria to run around and see seagulls.

The park is along the Potomac and has a marina with charter boats and a neat old river boat. It’s also where the Chart House restaurant and the Torpedo Factory Art Center are.

After the park, we went out to eat at our favorite papa/daughter restaurant – Ted’s Montana Grill (or the “bison store”  to Georgie)

Ted’s has weird little stringy, sticky toys instead of crayons. Ironically, they line your table with butcher paper so crayons would be perfect. But these things are kind of neat, too. They can be bent into all kind of designs. At one point I was looking away and I heard Georgie say, “Georgie have a moustache.” I turned and she had one of these under her nose. We’ve never played “moustache” with her so I’m not sure where she got the idea.

I woke up Saturday morning at 5:30 and decided not to go fly fishing. I was really congested and had no energy. The thought of driving over 2 hours each way drove me right back to the couch. But I couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept thinking of what a wasted opportunity it would be if I didn’t go.

I should give a little background, in case anyone forgot or didn’t know – Nikki got me a fly fishing beginner’s package for my birthday. It included a Wednesday night class (on knots, fish, bugs, etc.) at Northwest Fly Fishing Outfitters in Portland and then a full day of guided fishing on the Deschutes River near Maupin, OR. The Deschutes is one of the premier trout rivers in the West.

So anyway, I took a quick shower and was already starting to get really excited. I hit the road about 6:45, a bit later than I knew would get me at the meet point on time for our 9:00am meeting.

The drive out was incredible. The sun started to come out over Mt. Hood

To get to Maupin, I drove a little past The Dalles along the Columbia River Gorge, and then turned south on The Dalles-California Highway (US 197) over really hilly country to Maupin. From this direction you come down into Maupin from the top of a hill and when I got there a low cloud had nestled in the river valley.

The group consisted of me, a father and son duo, and our guide, and we all met at a c-store in Maupin. Then we followed each other down a BLM road along the river to our first stop.

At the first stop, our guide outfitted us with dry flies and we worked on that technique. Then we went upriver a few miles and learned nymphing. The best part was wading – the water was cold and moving fast and felt really great to be in. At one point I lost my balance while walking in it and sat down on the bottom. My jacket pockets were filled with water but somehow I escaped getting wet inside.

On of the other guys caught a Rocky Mountain whitefish but I had to leave early to get back to Portland so I didn’t catch anything. I don’t mind though, I was happy to get the technique down and will use the fly rod Adam got me as soon as possible.

Coming back (and for a lot of the way there) I had a great view of Mt. Hood. At one point on the way back I was on top of a hill and i could see Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and even a faint Mt. Rainier.

**Note: The guide took some pictures of me fishing and when he e-mails them to me I’ll put them up

Fly Fishing on the Deschutes River

But here’s a teaser

Portland has a huge range of really novel food ideas. It seems like anyone who lives here and has any kind of idea for a restaurant, opens it and it thrives. We’ve seen biscuit places, waffle places, and cupcake places. Today we decided to try another novel concept for breakfast – Slappy Cakes, where you cook your own pancakes at your table.

We fell in love with Slappy Cakes before we even ordered because as we were being seated, Georgie was allowed to stop in a toy drawer and pick out some toys to take to the table. This is genius if you’re a parent.

Georgie got a motorcycle, a doodle pad, and one of those view finder toys.

By the way, that metal part of the table is our cooking surface. They came around after we ordered and oiled it up and turned up the heat.

We ordered buttermilk batter with dried cherries and blueberries. We all split one order of that and then also split an order of Slappy Benedict – eggs benedict made with spinach, prosciutto, poached eggs, hollandaise, and a spread of pureed garlic and sun-dried tomatoes.

Nikki decided to combine some of our pancake into a snowman and then give it bunny ears with the remaining batter.

Here are some pictures of Georgie in her new ‘Chopper’ robe. She loves it. She put it on this morning and said, “Georgie looks fabulous,” then did a little dance. Nikki found it at a kids consignment shop here.

Georgie loves bath robes. In fact yesterday in Fred Meyer, she saw a lady wearing a frumpy dress and she pointed at her and loudly said, “She have a bath robe on!”

And here’s Annie in her new fishing hat. Georgie and I got it yesterday at the fly shop, where we went to get me a few supplies for Saturday.  Georgie loved the shop. She got her face licked by a dog and kept grabbing fly rods and saying, “Georgie catch a fish herself.”

Today was another day where Nikki, Darla, and Annie all went off on their own — this time to consignment shops — and Georgie and I were left to our own devices. We decided to ride a train.

We drove to the Rose Garden, took a brief peek in the Blazers Fan Shop, then got on the Met train going downtown.

Georgie loved the view of the other bridges from the Steel Bridge.

We got off the train downtown at Pioneer Place and got teriyaki in the food court. Georgie loved it. Broccoli and meat are two of her favorite things anyway.

As the girls started their nighttime routine, I headed out to the east side of town for my fly-fishing intro class at Northwest Flyfishing Outfitters. This class was about the basics of equipment plus some basic knots. On Saturday I’ll head to Maupin, OR, for some time on the Deschutes River. Nikki and I were both leaning strongly toward canceling my trip but after the class I think I am too excited. Plus I haven’t learned anything about casting yet. So I think I am going to drive out there, fish for about 3 hours, then come back. Kind of crazy, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity plus it’s already paid for.