Living in a new community has been fun, challenging, and I’m *just* starting to feel like I might know my way around and things are starting to feel familiar and routine. I just realized I don’t have to think so hard all the time about navigating from place to place.

I’ve discovered a few new favorite places in Portland and the surrounding areas.

For food my favorites are, Bamboo Sushi, Bete-Lukas, Jacqueline, Toro Bravo and Rosa Rosa. (There are many more – but for the sake of brevity – I’ll leave it here.)

For seasonal activities with kiddos – we have been loving the amount of berries, and other fruits that can be picked. We have been to Morning Shade farm for berries, Echo Valley Natives for native plants for our garden, including some native fruiting bushes. We plan to head to Sauvie Island this fall for our pumpkins and of course we really enjoyed the great corn maze at Bella’s Organic Farm.

The Hoyt Arboretum is lovely, free, and close to the Oregon Zoo and International Rose test garden. For those extra rainy days, we love OMSI,  Powells, Oregon Historical Society and Portland Art Museum.

I’m looking forward to finding more to add to the list. I expect this will be one of many posts as I keep discovering fun new things in my newly adopted city.

-CM

Here we are, on day three – 4th and 10th grade. I’m simultaneously relieved to have more routine and structure to my days, (and hopefully and uptick in my productivity and running my business.) and sad that summer and our family times together are less now that we all are occupied during the day.

I’m trying to reinvent my business, I’ve launched in 2011, and it’s been a great and I’ve experienced organic growth, and until recently I had a steady consistent client base. Given that I moved the business across the country and am now serving a different area, the unique challenges of this space have needs have necessitated a reboot.

Both kiddos are looking forward to the routine, but are each working through different challenges and expectations of the year. I vividly remember my high school experiences, remember the social pressures and challenges and the exhaustion of stretching my brain to its limits. 10th grade has a very robust, rigorous curriculum, and already after the first day significant homework was assigned, including reading, interpreting and presenting on the U.S. Constitution. Wow.

4th grade the big news so far relates more to new playground boundaries, cross stitch learning, and continued work on reading – especially as a dyslexic child.

How did you first week go?

-CM