I found some old photos Heather took from the 2002 4th of July fireworks celebration in Franklin, Wisconsin. They turned out pretty cool considering she isn’t a professional photographer.

They can be viewed here.

Since it is almost April I thought I should get around to posting our pictures from Christmas ’02. My in-laws were in town and we all decided to spend Christmas day by the coast. The pictures are kind of dark due to the combination of the overcast weather and my poor camera skills (so much for my career aspirations as a Penthouse photographer).

I also posted a picture of our short lived Christmas tree.

Today we went to the Japanese Garden in Portland which (according to the literature we were given when entering) is one of the best examples of a Japanese garden outside of Japan. The grounds were beautiful and offered a nice view of the downtown skyline and Mt. Hood. It amazes me how green everything was given that we visited in February. We plan on returning in the summer when more of the plants are in bloom.

We took several pictures that can be seen here.

I was cleaning up my hard drive and came across a bunch of photos I downloaded from my camera. They are from October 2002 when Heather and I went to a pumpkin farm near Portland.

You can see them here.

Heather and I spent last weekend in Washington. We spent the night at McMenamins Olympic Club hotel & theater in Centralia, Washington. It is an interesting historical building with each room of the hotel commemorating a significant individual from the Club’s history including “Gentleman Train Robber” Roy Gardner who was apprehended there in 1921. Today the site has the typical McMenamins style and atmosphere while maintaining much of its history. The rest of Centralia left a bit to be desired as Heather had left me with the impression of it being more like Gurney Mills, IL.

I took a few pictures while we were there.

On Sunday we took advantage of the good weather and made the trip to Mt. St. Helens. It was an amazing site to see and also afforded us our first view of show since moving to the West coast from Milwaukee. We plan on returning in the summer since the closest observation center was closed due to seasonal weather.

I took a lot of pictures.