Coldplay

 First I have to admit that until about a year ago I knew that Coldplay was a band and that the lead singer was married to Gwyneth Paltrow but I couldn't have told you the name of a single one of their songs.  Then I heard "Clocks" at another concert and loved it.  When I heard that Coldplay was doing a concert in Portland I bought two tickets.  Scott was my date for the evening.

The concert did not disappoint.  They are fantastic entertainers and the special effects just added to the magic of the music!  I especially loved the millions of pieces of confetti that sprayed out of canons on us.  The pieces were tissue paper cutouts of flowers and butterflies and birds!  Magical!  And there were literally millions of them.  The photo doesn't really do justice to how amazing it was.

Another bit of excitement was created by the bracelets each audience member was given.  When remotely turned on, they lit up the whole place with little sparkles of color!

Their encore included my fav "Clocks"!  But the best part for me was the constant smile on Scott's face and listening to him sing along with Chris Martin!!

April 15th

Our Sunday School teacher shared a line from a poem with us today. I love it! So true!

That was the year in which 
we had to pay
 the tax on love, which was grief, of course. — LAURA KASISCHKE 


Pretzel

Last week at Guide Dogs for the Blind I met a dog named Pretzel. After finding our sweet Jordana sleeping in this position I think Pretzel might have been a good name for her! Does this look at all comfortable for an afternoon nap? This isn't the first time I've found her sleeping like this. It's just the first time I managed to grab the camera before she woke up.

She must have been comfortable because she was snoring contentedly!

Floods

March has had record rainfall....and when you say that about a month in Portland you are talking about a serious rain! There is also a lot of snow in the mountains and that combination means that the Willamette River is flooding.

This beach normally extends to the trees. Notice the trash can!

This looks like as swimming pool but is actually an area where weddings and concerts are held. Now it is a big duck pond!

The boat house is normally in the river. However the bridge is not!

Can you see the tree trunk that the water moved onto the bridge?

The path we usually take goes past the bench and on along the river. No exercising on that path today unless you want to swim.

Miss Jordana loves going on walks to investigate the flooding!

Vinu

One of my favorite things about George's two years working for a company based in Bangalore, India was making new friends. Vinu is a young engineer who lived here in Portland for the past two years. Almost every week George and I have gone out to lunch with him. A couple of weeks ago he moved back home. When we asked him what he'd miss about Oregon, besides us of course, without hesitation he said, "Olive Garden".

He is the same age as our sons and I had to fight hard to resist the urge to 'mother' him. Sometimes I felt like saying, "Drive carefully it's raining" or "Where is your coat? It's cold today." We miss him but are confident we'll see him again!