West Linn's Fourth Annual Street Dance 2011 was a blast! This year was the fourth annual West Linn Street Dance held in Historic Willamette's downtown main street. Now I'm sorta bummed that I missed the first three! Hey, better to come late to the party than never at all right? I got there around 5:45 to help "Lady" the Historic Willamette's Main Street info booth and got in some really great people watching. The main road through the town was completely taped off from 11th to 14th Street to allow for ease of walking and dancing without worry of vehicles. Food venders were selling lots of tasty morsels and drinks. You did have to get one of those wrist bands that declared to all that you were over 21 if you were wandering around with a drink in your hand. At around six, local juggler Ma... 07/10/2011

Pay it foward, Sponsoring a booth for a new West Linn business This is my first Pay in forward post! I love this idea of paying it forward,so hope it falls in the category. I try to think of this as I move through my day. I know there have been days where I've been frustrated..or not feeling up to par and a simple smile, or gesture has taken me out of that mood. It is indeed infectious in such a good way! Since I'm on the West Linn Farmer's Market commitee for the first time this year, I decided to sponsor a Prudential NW Properties booth for the season for a local small business. Calling all Dogs West Linn is a small local business that makes all natural, organic, vegan doggy treats. Owner Katherina Alexandre creates these " gourmet" freshly baked treats using organic and premium produ... 07/01/2011

West Linn Summer Solstice and Farmer's Market opening a success! All the preparation and meetings to prepare for last nights Summer Solstice Celebration to kick off the New West Linn Farmer's Market was worth it. It all came together beautifully!  Coming into this committee late in the game, my only real contribution was to help out on some decorations and to do things as needed on the event night, but the core of the group really worked hard to get all the details, entertainment, sponsors and advertising done. Interesting how I've always gone to and enjoyed these events never really giving thought to the people behind the scenes that work hard to put it all together! Now I sure do! Here are some pictures of the evening. The Bridgetown Morris Men in the video aren't just "on" for the sh... 06/23/2011

West Linn Renaissance Summer Solstice Celebration to kick of the Farmer's Market June 22, 2011 5-8PM Yes! I can now enjoy some locally grown fresh produce, meander through some artisan booths, while listening to some live entertainment..all within one mile from my home!  " Tomorrow night though, it will be Renaissance style with with roving minstrels, jugglers, and lot's of fun in the making that kicks off the New revitalized West Linn's Farmers Market. Read the Press release for more! I know as a new member of the Promotions and the Farmer's Market commitees, I've watched in awe as this thing has come together! I can't say as I had much to do with it...but I'll be there tomorrow night ready to do what's needed! Oh..and I'll be ready to shop as well! With a puppet show, a game area for ... 06/21/2011

(Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) Where is it Wednesday...somewhere in West Linn, Oregon *** Yes, we have a winner! John McCarthy!  John I think I need to make one really hard for you! Each week I'll be posting a new picture on Wednesday morning. The title of the blog will have the City where the picture is taken and I'll post the answer Wednesday evening...not only here on my blog, but on facebook business page (please click like and add yourself there) as well as tweetin it on my Twitter page as well. Do you know where it is? Care to guess? Comments are welcome. I'll post the answer tonight. Hint: No hint..this is an easy one!. Oh..ok, I blogged about this before. Historic Downtown Willamette Meteorite replica, answer to Where is it Wednesday...somewhere in West Linn, ... 06/15/2011

I'm real excited and am looking forward to Wedneday,June 22nd when the New West Linn Farmers Market kicks off in style with a summer solstice celebration Renaissance style! I'll be writing more about this, but for right now, I can't say it better than Midge has.   Here is the press release written by Midge Pierce, Historic Willamette Main Street Promotions Chair       ELIZABETHAN SUMMER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION IN WEST LINN Celebration Opens West Linn’s Wednesday Farmer’s Market in Historic Willamette West Linn’s new, revitalized Wednesday Farmer’s Market will kick off June 22 in Historic Willamette with a Summer Solstice Celebration of music and magic to entice bountiful harvests throughout the Willamette Valley.    Renaissance style merrymaking with roving minstrels, jugglers, lords and ... 06/12/2011

(Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) Where is it Wednesday...somewhere in West Linn, Oregon It"s Willamette Park in West Linn Oregon..answer to this weeks Where is it Wednesday 5/25/11 Each week I'll be posting a new picture on Wednesday morning. The title of the blog will have the City where the picture is taken and I'll post the answer Wednesday evening...not only here on my blog, but on  facebook business page  (please click like and add yourself there) as well as tweetin it on my Twitter page as well. Do you know where it is? Care to guess? Comments are welcome. I'll post the answer tonight. Hint: It's in the historic district...yes, you need to go through Historic Willamette Main Street to get to Willamette Park. Willamette Park is located 1100 12th Street West Linn, O... 05/25/2011

  (Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) Wisteria blooms in my West Linn Oregon backyard   I don't seem to recall this wisteria blooming this much last year, so hoping it's due to the new irrigation system we installed, so it received lots of good water during our usually drought summer months.  I've always loved looking at wisterias in the gardening books and magazines, so when we were buying this house, I was excited to see it had a nice strong vine. When we bought our home this vine had been left on its own for quite a while, so it was actually coming up through the top deck of three levels and almost touching the bedroom doors. So after a really good cut back, a wood beam added to have it grow on that instead of reaching towards the house, and this year we were rewarded ... 05/21/2011

Pretty in Pink..Cherry blossoms in West Linn Oregon My Cherry trees have finally blossomed that line the one side of my yard. When we bought our home in the summer of 2009, the yard was very overgrown and had not been taken care of for quite some time. The Cherry trees had the "wilt" so were not looking too good. We had an arborist come in and trim them back and they put something in the soil at the base of each one to help the wilt..so fingers crossed. Right now they look beautiful!   05/01/2011

(Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) West Linns Historic Willamette Main Street Adopt a Planter cleanup day It's that time of year again when the volunteers come out and start taking care of the planters they've adopted on West Linns Historic Willamette Main street. I can honestly say that I never really gave it much thought as to who took care of the planters full of pretty shrubs, plants and flowers that are throughout Historic Willamette Main Street. I've been either strolling along shopping, or heading into one of the restaurants, passing these by but always enjoying how pretty they make the walkways look.  Little did I know these are taken care of by volunteers that have adopted a planter and maintain them through the season. I just became aware of this since I've rec... 04/22/2011

We've all seen homes that have bold paint colors on the walls, especially those painted in the 1990's.  When you're living in your home, you should paint your home whatever color makes you happy ... but when it comes time to sell, think "neutral" paint colors so that buyers don't think "too much work is required" and move on to the NEXT home on their list. This townhouse is in a wonderful suburb of Portland Oregon, but has been on the market for over 6 months with very few showings.  It's well-priced and in very good condition ... BUT the wall colors were so bold in the online photos that likely, potential buyers just couldn't see beyond them. The listing agent recommended that the sellers consider staging with rental furnishings (they had moved out but left furniture behind) so the old... 04/02/2011

One mans junk is anothers treasure...West Linn Curbside cleanup coming the week of April-4th-10th, 2011! So last time they city of West Linn did this, I missed out. I went outside and was wondering why there were sofas, lawn furniture,appliances and such out with the regular garbage. I had soooo much stuff that I could have put out to take advantage of this, but the day my garbage was collected I was off an running so it was too late. Being a lover of garage sales and garden art, I did do a quick look see around my neighborhood to see if there was anything that I could use..or re-purpose. I did espy a nice lounger that looked in decent condition..but it wouldn't fit in my car..sigh. I know the guy across the street had a BBQ with cover out there when I left...the cover was gone when I c... 03/27/2011

(Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) The New West Linn Farmers Market 2011 season..Wednesdays 5-8PM June 22-August 24th. It all started with the ActiveRain video challenge. I decided I would do a video on my local town and had met a woman that was on the Historic Willamette Main Street commitee as well as the president of the West Linn Chamber of Commerce, both very involved in the community. Since they were gracious enough to be in the video, I had sent them each a copy when it was done. My video Historic Willamette Neighborhood..a great place to live and visit was then sent to another woman in charge of the promotion commitee for Historic Willamette a Main Street Community as well as the West Linn Farmers Market. My video is now on the main page of the website after show... 03/24/2011

West Linn Oregon Real Estate Market Trend Report for February 2011, posted 3/11 (Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) Here is the latest 12 month Market Trend Report for West Linn, Oregon. We are always one month behind so these are the statistics for February, 2011. It looks like the inventory inched down slightly from 10 months to 9.9 months. What this means is that it would take 9.9 months to sell all the current active homes on the market. An average inventory would be around 5-6 months, so anything above that would be a buyer's market, and anything below that would generally be a sellers market. Inventory in months is calculated by dividing the active listings at the end of the month in question by the number of closed sales for that month. What's the difference between... 03/13/2011

Need a reason to start using video?..you just never know where they will show up! Ever since the ActiveRain video challenge, I've been working on making some local videos, as well as taking some for my blog while traveling. I just recently googled my cwestfall60 Youtube channel and there were a few things that caught my eye that I never noticed before. I noticed lots of sites that have my cwestfall60 attached to it..many foreign. There was also a travel site, world news network, alternative healing site (thinking the calming beaches maybe), as well as several local sites that linked to my youtube channel. My video is featured prominently on the www.historicwillamette.com web page and I recently was contacted by a musician that plays at the West Linn Farmers Market asking if he could use... 03/11/2011

Ok, so maybe it's because I grew up on the east coast where I learned to drive in the snow by going into an empty parking lot and practicing 360's and how to turn the wheel to counter slides.. or maybe it's because this "HUGE" snow storm is so mild compared to what the rest of the country has been seeing on a consistant basis, that I have to smile when all the schools are cancelled, the news cuts into The today show to go on an on about the "Winter storm". Granted, there are some areas in Portland that do get slick icy snow, like the West Hills, Skyline Drive and the Sylvan area, but this is usually in the morning and it's gone by mid afternoon. I watched as the gal from channel 8 news ...who must have pulled the short straw stood on at one of the entry ramps talking about slick conditi... 02/24/2011

(Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) Fields Bridge Park West Linn Oregon Did you know that Fields Bridge Park is where the Willamette Meteorite which is the 6th largest in the world was discovered in 1902? It can be found in the Museum of Natural History where it's been since 1906. As I walked along the Meteorite interpretive trail, this morning,I came upon the replica of the meteorite as well as many descriptive display boards discribing how the meteor found it's way down from Canada to West Linn. Interesting stuff! Fields Bridge Park is also a popular baseball park with it's new turf,covered batting range, basketball courts and play structures.This is a great place to go for a nice walk along the Tualatin River Trail.. I know I see lots of people walking their dogs as wel... 02/16/2011

Ever since moving to my new home, I have just gone to the birds. I have some feeders hanging from the railing of my deck (which is three stories high in the back) so I can watch them from my windows. It would seem that I've attracted some woodpeckers ever since I started putting the suet feeder up. A common sight to my feeder are the Downy Woodpecker, (or could be the Hairy Woodpecker) since they look so much alike, and Norther Flickers. Yesterday morning, I looked out my bedroom window and saw for the first time this huge Pileated Woodpecker. I grabbed my camera and tried to get as close as I could without it taking off. It seems that the birds are really coming out in abundance lately so I need another trip to my favorite bird store The Backyard Bird Store..I go to the one in Lake Osw... 02/13/2011

(Cindy's Blog about Portland Real Estate & Stuff) Here is the latest 12 month Market Trend Report for West Linn, Oregon. We are always one month behind so these are the statistics for January, 2011. It looks like the inventory inched up slightly from 9.5 months to 10 months. What this means is that it would take 10 months to sell all the current active homes on the market. An average inventory would be around 5-6 months, so anything above that would be a buyer's market, and anything below that would generally be a sellers market. Inventory in months is calculated by dividing the active listings at the end of the month in question by the number of closed sales for that month. What's the difference between the average day compared to the average cumulative days on the market? The average ... 02/11/2011

Ok, so I held an open house both Saturday and Sunday.  I was amazed at home many people came through on Superbowl Sunday.  They all said we are not football fans so we were just out and about.  I think I will always hold opens now on big football weekends.  I did pick up one buyer, but most were just curios about this "bank owned" property and wanted to know how the market was.  02/07/2011