Reminiscing #3: Hood To Coast

Late in August I ran Hood to Coast with my friend Amber. It is the largest or longest (or something like that) relay race in the world. It covers 197 miles from Mount Hood to Seaside Beach. Here is a picture of me finishing my first leg... and speaking of legs, I'm pretty proud of the muscular tone seen here:
And this is the song that without which, I would never have finished my last and longest and hottest leg. They would still be searching that gravel logging road for some sign of me curled up in the fetal position. Thank the heavens above for my i-pod.

Another Year Has Come and Gone

A BIG "thank you" to all you who wished me a happy birthday last Friday. It was one of the better birthdays I've had, thanks to my sweet husband. I'll report on that later in this post but first, a late birthday shout-out to my rad older sister. She's four years and one week older than me. I was due on her birthday but must have wanted my own party because I waited 7 days for my big entrance. She named me and we've been best friends ever since (most days when we were young, and all days now that we're grown). Anyways she's the prettier, funnier and all-around cooler sister and I can't remember a day I didn't look up to her.

last year

I gave her this print called "Everything is OK When You are Near" from Studio Mela

And I made her this card

For my birthday, Jer took the day off and we went to breakfast with friends (yum, apple pancakes) and spent the day at the beach:

Do you like the above photo? It just might be for sale in my shop by the end of the week...stay tuned!

In the evening, Jer planned a rockin' bowling party with friends:

Did I mention the loot I raked-in? Lisa made me this incredible necklace, the likes of which may or may not be available for purchase soon...

Angie knocked book number 4 off my list and Jeremy shocked the pants off me by gifting me with the long-time longed-for MacBook. I can now look forward to working away the winter gloom in the cheerfully-painted, people-filled coffee shop downstairs instead of being chained to my desktop. Being 27 will be grand after all.

Fell Off The Face...

...of the blogging planet. Things have been busy lately. Not "I have so much to blog, I've been doing cool stuff" busy, but more like "I don't know where the last few weeks have gone, how lame" busy. It's late so this entry is certainly not going to make up for any lost time but I have missed my little blog so I wanted to re-visit it in some way. I've been cleaning my house and had a funny discussion tonight with my friend Skye. She was brainstorming strategies for turning the below statement into audio form as a brainwashing tool for her husband. I know that "cleanliness is next to Godliness" and I really do prefer a clean house, but there are just so many more interesting ways to spend time!

Reminiscing #2: Family Time

At the beginning of August I got to spend 9 days with my fam. The first leg of the trip was in Dallas- just me, Mom, and Angie. Some highlights:

*Asking our waiter if he'd "ever tried the Wiener Schnitzel?" (I never claimed to be mature)

*Shopping with stellar shopping companions

*Discovering these shoes:
*Getting my fill of Chik-Fil-A... WHY do they not exist in the NW? We have a serious shortage of waffle fries in our part of the country!


The next leg was in OK at Angie's place where I got to play with her beautiful kiddos:




Finally, Mom and I went back to Denver where Jer flew in and we hung out with my Dad and Bro. We went to a Rockies Game, watched the Olympics, experienced freakishly cold/wet weather, and went to the Denver Art Museum. My favorite part was the Clyfford Still exhibit, soon to become the Clyfford Still Museum. So inspiring. I also loved all the interactive parts of the museum including this wall where anyone could post their definition of 'Art'. It made me want to have a wall in my house where the people who visit can post their thoughts and ideas. How do you define art?
Oh yeah, and I loved this quote so much I talked the security guard into letting me leave it on my camera (he busted me for taking pictures of the temporary exhibit and made me delete the rest). The quote makes me feel like my snapshot style of photography is indeed valuable.

Reminiscing #1: A Day at the Beach

Late in July, Stacey - my best friend of 12 years - came to visit for a long weekend. It had been years since we spent that kind of time together and it was SO GREAT to hang out. She is like a sister and I miss her all the time. While she was in town we went to Cannon Beach and it was such a beautiful day! We have lots of memories there and now we'll have another. The day we talked for hours while polishing off a bag of mint Oreos.

We were laughing so hard this was the only picture we pulled ourselves together for.

Yum!

Another day of her visit Stace came along on our church youth activity to the Alpine Slides. Just so you know, I annihilated her.

Autumn around the corner...

Wow! I cannot believe that we're a week away from Labor Day! A few things I'm looking forward to this coming Fall/Winter:

*Another season of The Office
*Football games

*My new boots
*Snowboarding with the husband

*Ang, my marvelous sister, and her cute family are moving to Corvallis. That's only 1.5 hours from me!!!

BUT, I'm not ready to let go of summer quite yet. It's been a busy one and I've neglected to blog about much of it. So, my next several posts will consist of some reminiscing. Stay tuned!

It's not the power of the curse, it's the power you give the curse

Right. So it's been a while and I intend to make up for lost blogging time over the course of the next few days. For now, I thought I'd do a quick movie review. Jer is currently in Bend with his family and I have to work Tues & Weds, after which I will rush to his side to enjoy some of my fav central OR activities. Until then, I am enjoying my watch-whatever-movie-I-want time. I make a point of doing that whenever he's away (don't let me forget to tell you about my experience with 'Amelie' when he went on his last trip). Tonight, it was Penelope. I thought it was a darling movie and my favorite parts are outlined below:

*The scene where Penelope is trying to guess which instrument Max plays and he's butchering 'You Are My Sunshine' ...adorable
*The scene where Penelope sees the outside world for the first time. And the way she sends postcards from everywhere she goes even though the places are nowhere exceptional ...I want to remember to stop and see the world for the first time sometimes, to enjoy every little big thing.
*Hooray for the set and costume designers ...I would love to live in Penelope's room, at least for a little while.

If you aren't familiar with the scenes I'm referring to, see the movie. I recommend it. Now it's real late and I'm real tired. More posts tomorrow. Promise.