Find Renee Winners!

CONGRATULATIONS WINNERS!!!



Ingrid Hartig took 1st place in our 'Find Renee' challenge. She is pictured here with the grand prize of a flashy new sports car. In addition to her brand new automobile she has also won 372 Fun Points*. Congratulations Ingrid, hope you enjoy the new wheels!


Our second place prize goes to Mark Cook. He is pictured above with his brand new Rockin' Wheels 3000. With only $3 to fill this sucker up at the pump, it's perfect to combat the summers high gas prices. Watch out ladies, Mark is out on the town.

*Fun Points can only be used at participating retailers (of which there are none). Fun Points are not redeemable for cash, and in actuality are of no value at all.

Saturday Market

Every Saturday here in Portland locals set up tents and participate in the Saturday Market. This Saturday was the first time we attended. Part of it is held underneath one of our many bridges (pictured above) - probably to keep out of the rain. However, there are booths that line the surrounding blocks as well.



This is the outdoor portion. There was a lot of art, a lot of soap, a lot of junk food and a lot of music. It was incredibly involved for a weekly event. We talked to one of the booth owners who told us they are set up from March through December!

Dropping Obama on yo Mama

Today we attended a rally in downtown Portland for Barack Obama. Apparently we were not the only ones who thought it was a good idea to go sit in the hot sun in 80 degrees with no shade for 5 hours, as the rally was reported to have a record setting 75,000 attendees. The line to even get in was estimated at nearly 20 city blocks. We managed pretty good seats however (shown by the white star in the first two pictures). The stage is all the way to the right in the top picture.



Take that Woodstock.



For anyone interested in the news coverage of the event please click here.

Watering Hole

Yesterday was around 95 degrees here in sunny Portland. In order to beat the heat we decided to go and investigate a public fountain that we had been told about. It was awesome! It was actually more of a swimming area than a fountain as there were tons of people climbing in and out of the pools. Bonus points if you can pick out Renee!



There are no railings or anything and there is just a sign that reads, "swim in the fountain at your own risk". From these pictures you can see how high some of the pools are though and people kept standing right on the edge. We decided that no one would be allowed to have this much fun in a fountain in west Michigan.

A+

Thanks to everyone who sent me such nice congratulatory cards. Here is one of my favorites. Some of you may know the artist.

The Grad

It's official, I graduated. For those of you who couldn't be there for the ceremony (and my speech) yesterday I thought I would post a picture of me decked out in my graduation attire, Valedictorian hood included.



Here is what my hood looks like. Kendall's school colors are apparently red, yellow and blue, the three primary colors. I felt like a wizard.

Kendall Grad Show

For my graduation at Kendall I got to put up a group of work. I ended up covering the entire left side of this hallway with stuff.



I happened to snap this picture just as this guy leaned in to inspect one of my pencil drawings. I thought his expressions was pretty funny.