Well, it’s official. We have survived a full year of Portland. This time last year we had just spent our first day in our temp house after driving 2,000 miles over four straight days across the United States to get here. We came here with one goal in mind… buy a house! Three months later we found just what we wanted and have been here since.

It has been a full 9 months since we bought our first home and we still have unpacking to do ;) In the past few months Janet and I decided we would try to take up gardening and just recently harvested our very first crop of radishes :)

Our garden is doing fantastic, but I think that has a lot to do with our garden gnome who watches over it…

So all in all we are happy with our decision to move here. Ya it rains a lot, this last year more than usual… but this city is just to magical for that to really get to us.

We love you Portland :)

So, I’ll make this as short as I can. It’s not my style to slam a company or person, especially in a public forum. But I don’t know that there is anything else I could do, and I want to put this out there for any would-be Googlers as a warning.

Our situation with our temporary rental space is finally over (yes, we did move out over 2 months ago and were still dealing with it). If you are considering it, I would recommend against renting with the company When In Portland and owner(?) Michelle Rosa for your temporary Portland dwelling. In short: overpriced, misleadingly advertised, unclean, and worst of all slow/no communication to get stuff taken care of. Oh and we never met the landlord, ever.

Like I said I am torn to write this but when you are searching for a place to stay in a remote place sometimes all you have is Google. If any would-be renters have any questions, contact me.

We landed in Portland June 4th with a big goal: buy a home. Yesterday it was finalized!

We are the very proud owners of a 1911 craftsman home in northeast Portland.

A very empty home we now get to decorate and furnish. I’ll be honest.. it seems really daunting. I have been tearing pages from magazines and saving images off the web for decorating inspiration for many months. But I have no idea where to start on my own.

We named our home Bauhaus! For more photos click the pic above. Feel free to share ideas on colors! I think I want to paint the kitchen a yummy green but beyond that not sure what to keep or paint over yet.

Tomorrow the POD gets dropped off. If you are going to have a POD parked on a Portland street you have to get a permit, by the way. $20 and you can only have it parked there for two weeks.

I want to give a plug to the team that made our home buying process go so smoothly. Kudos to our amazingly patient and helpful Realtor Deb Counts-Tabor with Oregon Realty and savvy broker Michael Sullivan with Capital M Lending. And thanks to all our friends (old and new!!) and family for tips and support along the way.

Peter and I cannot wait to close on our new house.. some time this week (!!). The place we’ve been staying temporarily is… not that great. To pass the time the other day I taught Peter how to play Rummy and he taught me how to play Poker with these Diet Coke playing cards I picked up in the dollar bin at Target last week. Can’t wait to unpack our other games when we move in :)

Day Four: June 4, 2009
Boise, Idaho to Portland, Oregon.
Distance: 673 mi (~ 6 hrs)

Last day! We were super excited. The drive did not disappoint.

Much of it is along the Columbia River, on the other side of which is Washington State.

When we got to the Welcome to Oregon sign we wanted to pull over and get a photo with it. Unfortunately it sits on a bridge with no real place to stop, so we just got it passing by.

Counting down the miles, squee-ing at every xxx miles to Portland sign, finally made it:

We found our temporary dwelling with ease, and Peter returned the tow-dolly immediately. He got back, we unpacked the truck, and then got a big Portland rainshower welcome. Glad to have made it.