For all the pictures we found check out our Sipe Family Picture Gallery.

My employer needed someone to fly down to Phoenix, AZ for some work. I volunteered so I could combine it into a chance to head over to the Grand Canyon to see Carmen. I flew down from Portland to Phoenix in the early morning on Friday. It was a warm 101 in Phoenix and I really was not impressed with the city. Just way to brown, hot, and busy for a small town Northwest guy.

After finishing up my work I drove up to the Grand Canyon and Carmen’s house. It was really great to hang out and spend some time with her. She had just picked up her new puppy Artemis and it was fun to see a cute puppy again since mine is now 75lbs.

Saturday Carmen and I headed down into the Canyon for a hike to Horseshoe Mesa. It was quite the trip. Hot. Steep. and Rocky. Just what you think hiking in the Grand Canyon would be. We walked to the Horseshoe Mesa old mining area and then all the way to the end of the Mesa. We had a nice lunch and cooled down a bit … a bit it was still hot hot after all. There was thunder clouds all day and we were afraid, and kind of hopeful really, that we were going to get soaked with a Arizona thunderstorm. It started to drizzle during our lunch so we decided to head up the canyon. Well, we got NO rain but we did have a “nice” walk back.

Turns out, though, my 10 year old boots couldn’t handle the canyon. My boot sole started coming off and by a bit up the mountain was completely about to come off. Not wanting to go barefoot up the canyon wall Carmen and I managed to fashion a fix out of an eyeglasses string. We made it up in really good time even though my legs were dying by the top. Once we made it to the tourists with flip flops and white pants we knew we were right at the top!

The next day I had sore calves and some HUGE blisters but a good set of achievement. Carmen and I took a drive out to the end of the Park and the tower out there. Then we took a little walk to a semi-secret point that is one of Carmen’s favorites. Check out our picture gallery for my pictures from the trip. You can also check out my flickr page for all the pictures I took and if you want to download a full size picture for a print.

I left the Grand Canyon around 1:30PM and survived the drive back to Phoenix and flight back to PDX airport. It was SO GOOD to be back home among the green grass, trees, and livable temperatures.

Movie of Kayla meeting baby Richard IV for the first time in the hospital (January 21,2008) [yes about 4 months ago]

Movie of Kayla and the Family playing on the Washington beach near Long Beach, WA. (February 2008)

To view the images on our site using PicLens you need to:
1) Download the PicLens Plugin at their website: http://www.piclens.com
2) Install the Plugin. It is fairly straightforward but let me know if you have issues.
3) Browse to our Photo Gallery.
4) Now you can either:
   -Mouse Over an Image and then Click on the Arrow That Appears
   -In Firefox Click on the PicLens Icon in the upper left of your screen
   OR
   -In Internet Explorer Click the >> To the Right of Tools and Select “Launch PicLens”

Since I currently have ALL of our images in a single gallery, it may take a while to load. Once PicLens loads (you will see a black screen with all the pictures stacked in a 3D wall) you can grab the screen with the mouse and drag the wall of pictures to move through. You can also click on the rectangle with the 4 arrows at the corners in the bottom left of the screen to start a slideshow.

If you have any problems with this let me know. Of course you can always view all our photos using the normal method of clicking on one and moving throuugh the gallery without this plugin.

UPDATE 6/1/2008: You can now also view all of our videos using the PicLens plug-in. Just go to our photo gallery, then click on the PicLens plug-in in your browser bar or click on a picture to launch the PicLens viewer. The PicLens videos will be at the beginning of the “photo wall.”

Technorati Tags: PicLens, photos, Sipe

I uploaded so many pictures that they go over to the second page so make sure you click through to the next page to see all the pictures!

We have been forced to change our domain name and then of course our business name because they felt Eagle Crest Getaway violated their trademark. Not noticing the fact that there are tens of other Eagle Crests out there including eaglecrest.com and eaglecrestgc.com which are neither owned by the Eagle Crest Resort! We felt that the name Eagle Crest was merely a location and that location was where we owned our home and ran our Vacation Rental. We never pretended to be the resort and made it VERY clear on our home page that we owned and operated a single vacation rental that was located in the resort. But alas we have neither the time nor the money for a legal battle and when trademarks are concerned the big companies always win (can I get a Sam Buck’s Coffee please? … Not Any Longer).

Long story short now for the big reveal …. the new name of our Vacation Rental is …. Central Oregon Getaway! We wanted to keep the Getaway in the name and not have any more lawyers breathing down our backs so Central Oregon Getaway is the new name!

If any of my readers want to help feel free to paste any of the links below somewhere on your site to help get us back the three years we are loosing by switching domains.

<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest">Eagle Crest</a>
<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest Getaway">Eagle Crest Getaway</a>
<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest Vacation Rental">Eagle Crest Vacation Rental</a>
<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest Oregon">Eagle Crest Oregon</a>

If you do link send me a comment so I can return the favor

Technorati Tags: Eagle Crest, Eagle Crest Getaway, Eagle Crest Resort

Richard’s Birth Story

We left for church Sunday January 20th with no idea that by the end of the evening we would have a new baby boy. Stephanie had been having false contractions for the better part of a month and was dialated at her last prenatal appointment but things did not seem to be moving along any further.

We went to Target after church and had some Burgerville for lunch then went over to the Harriers, Stephanie’s parents. As we were playing some card games in late afternoon Stephanie started having contractions and they seemed to be the real thing. We expected them to be far apart but after they seemed to be pretty quick we started the stopwatch.

Within about an hour we were headed to the hospital to hopefully have a baby! We passed the triage test even though the contractions nearly disappeared at the hospital as Steph was 6cm dilated.

Steph was very calm and walked around the birthing center to pass the time and help things along. Her contractions started to be very uncomfortable around 8:30pm so she decided to have her epidural. With the one she had during Kayla not working we prayed this one would do better.

It took a few returns by the anesthesia nurse to get thing dialed in and she just had a small hot-spot of mild pain. Around 11:30pm it looked like we were going to have a long road ahead since at 9:30pm she was still 7cm dilated. Boy were we wrong.

Around 11:32pm Steph’s hips were hurting from laying on the one side so the nurse and Richard helped her get flat. That was very uncomfortable for her and she had lots of pressure so we helped her get turned to the other side a bit. That was really not good and she started to feel ill. We got her the bucket to be ill in. She vomited a few times when we heard a small sound. Richard said “That sounded like a baby crying!!!” The nurse was luckily in the room and hurried over to lift up the sheet covering Stephanie …

AND THERE WAS RICHARD STARING BACK AT US LAYING ON THE BED!!! The pressure she felt that caused her to vomit was Richard getting into position for birth and moving down the birth canal. The nurse was excellent and quickly got the cord in position and cleared his mouth then hit the button to bring in the calvary. Within 20 seconds there were 6 more nurses and our midwife in the room.

Baby Richard was doing great after his quick trip into the world. The nurse and midwife took great care of him and Steph. Steph did have a little bit of tearing but nothing like before. No huge blood loss or anything this time.

We thank all our friends and family for their prayers for a smooth and easy delivery. Steph was very very apprehensive after her last near death birthing experience and those prayers made it possible. Steph’s grandmother woke up around 1:30am her time with the strong feeling to pray for Stephanie. Grandma Eggert did and within 7 minutes we had our baby (since that happened to be 11:30pm our time).

Again we had a very memorable birth of a child!

Tons of photos and more information to follow soon!

I am excited to be working for Trailer City in Portland Oregon. I am now the General Manager for the Trailer City family of trailer dealerships. We have lots in Portland and Gresham as well as in Hood River, Oregon. I created the Trailer City website last year and it has been a great addition to the business. Trailer City has a great reputation in the community and carries great products.

I am working on some new marketing strategies and how I can use technology to grow the business. We are also working on using technology to increase communication between the different locations of Trailer City.

If you are in the Portland area and are looking for an enclosed trailer, utility trailer, dump trailer, or flatbed trailer; drop me a line and I can show you around one of our lots.

My first attempt at the contest yielded a wining photograph. My interpretation of “Glowing,” which is the picture at the beginning of this post, won for that week. This is a huge honor because photogamer includes many professional photographers and all are very very talented with many using superior DSLR cameras to my Konica point and shoot.

I am having a blast taking the pictures each week and it is really great to get ideas from other photographer’s submissions and be a part of the photographic community. You can view all of my flickr photos here or view just my photogamer flickr set here. You could also sign up on flickr, add richsipe to your contacts, and join the photogamer fun!