Christmas and more!

The past few days have been great. Full of friends, family and fun! A couple days before Christmas, Derek and I, along with my dad and a few of his friends went to a Deschutes Brewery tour and tasting. Which, by the way, is free and totally recommend it if you are ever in Bend.

This is beers number 3 and 4 :)

On Christmas eve my sister and her husband came into town at last. We went to a Christmas eve Candlelight service with the fam...

...and then out to Pine Tavern for a late dinner

Christmas morning arrived at last and the family gathered to open presents and spend the day together.


My wonderful husband got me the new iPod shuffle!!!! I am so excited about this. It is so cute and compact and perfect for anything.

The rest of Christmas day was spent with the fam. We hung out at home, went running with Annie, had a big Christmas feast around 2:00 then we all went to a movie. The kids saw Night at the Museum and the adults saw The Holiday. SO SO good. After the movies we had a gift exchange and Derek and I scored some great DVDs and a wine opener set. Exciting! Later that night as we gorged ourselves on dessert we played a fun game of Cranium that lasted way too long. But we had a blast.

Well, Christmas has come and gone, the rain has finally stopped falling, and the retail return lines are ridiculous. Exhale! Derek and I went shopping a lot of the day yesterday and last night we were treated to dinner at Zydeco by Dave and Majell. A splendid meal. Now I sit again at Backporch coffee just hanging out and waiting for the day to officially begin. I am meeting my friend Amber in about a half hour and then later today meeting with Megan and Kari. Oh how I love my friends :)

party

Last night Majell had a birthday party. We had lots of fun with friends....

Here's everyone hanging out


Dave and Derek hid in the back room avoiding the social scene for some of the time :)


It was a "bring a dessert to share" party and boy...there was quite a spread



Now I sit, once again, at backporch awaiting a friend as the rain falls on the streets outside. Another day in Bend continues.

just hanging out in Bend

I can't say that a lot has been going on these past few days, cause nothing really has. It has been peaceful and restful and I won't lie...I am kind of bored. But I need to cherish these moments cause in a couple weeks when I am sitting back at my desk at work, I will miss this. The majority of our day has pretty much been spent at Backporch sipping coffee and hanging out with our friends. The place is such a social hang out. You stay there long enough and you are bound to run into at least 2 or 3 people you know. It's great. Today I was even let behind the counter to play a little bit. Good times. I am learning that when it comes to my job, I have it quite nice. Poor Dave and Majell work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. They come home at night and are just wiped out. They hardly have enough energy left to fix and eat dinner and then they are off to bed around 9:00 every night only yo get up and do it all over again. They need a break, big time. Such is the life of owning your own business I guess.

We have seen my family a handful of times and 2 nights ago Derek and I went to see Pursuit of Happyness, I highly recommend it. Oh man, it was SO SO good. Go see it!

Yesterday and today I got to get behind the counter of Backporch coffee and experience it from the other side. They put me to work and we had a good time. Although I was confused while counting out change to not see loonies and toonies! Tonight Majell is having a little birthday party with friends and I am very much looking forward to seeing old friends and eating dessert :) I have pumpkin cheesecake tarts in the oven as we speak.

The next few days will be filled with hanging with my mom (some movie watching, shopping and scrapbooking) and then the Christmas festivities will begin! It still doesn't feel like Christmas time and I am beginning to wonder if it will at all this year. But...Merry Christmas!

Oregon at last

We are officially on Christmas holiday in Oregon. I cannot believe it. This has been the long awaited trip and it has arrived! Saturday morning we woke up super early and hit the road. We dropped off our friends Lucas and Shannon at the Seattle airport then continued down the highway. We arrive in Portland just in time for our hair appointments with Derek's brother-in-law. That's right! I have "new" hair yet again. It is now shorter and browner and I adore it. So we spent 2 nights in Portland and mostly just hung out with Derek's sister and her family.

Yesterday morning we hit the road again and headed for Bend. We have been so antsy to arrive in Bend because we get to be here for TWO WEEKS! After much web cam viewing and weather watching we decided to drive over Santiam pass rather than Mt. Hood because the roads seemed a lot clearer and we would rather not put chains on if we can help it. This seems to have been a mistake. As we were driving over the top of the pass there was a lot of packed, packed snow or ice. We were going down a hill, not going very fast and we lost control. We fish tailed back and forth for about 30 seconds and Derek handled the wheel so well. We thought he would be able to correct it and we would be back on our merry way. Instead, it only go worse and it became uncontrollable. Our car ended up spinning around and slamming into a snow bank on the opposite site of the road. It was so scary, so so scary. Especially because about 5 seconds later a semi truck came around the corner and had to drive around us. We know that someone up above was watching out for us. Luckily there were no other cars on the road, there were snow banks on both sides of the road and the semi truck didn't come even 2 seconds earlier. Needless to say we were quite shaken up and the rest of the drive to Bend seemed forever. Our bumper is pretty scratched up with a couple small cracks, but that is the only damage. Praise the Lord.

Anyway, we were so happy to get to Bend and see Dave and Majell (our good friends, that we are staying with in Bend). We got to see their new coffee shop and spent the evening there with them. On Monday nights they have a "coffee cupping" and we were happy to participate in that.

So we are officially in Bend and so happy and thankful to be here. More stories to come...

Christmas dinner with friends

Last Tuesday night, my girls group decided to invite the husbands along for a nice Christmas dinner at Levi and Shelley's house. Everyone pitched in and we had wonderful food and drinks including ham, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, wine and more! We had a great time eating and laughing and having some good "family time".

Here is our beautiful table complete with all the fixins :)

Lucas and Levi enjoying the meal

Shelley and Levi --- eat up!

Later, Shelley read us a Christmas story

Just hanging out


Lucas & Shannon and Jess & Jeff (and carl)

The gang!

birthday bash

Friday night our friends Ben and Lucas had a Birthday party......

This is Ben


This is Lucas

There was beer

...and friends (don't worry, Jess didn't drink the beer)

and drinking of beer

shortly followed by singing

...and dancing

fun was had by all :)

The rest of the story...and Thanksgiving too!

The saga continued as we went to the airport Tuesday morning to catch our 9am flight. We were checking in and they told us that we were in fact on the 5pm flight not the 9am flight. This was a breaking point for both Derek and I as that was the last thing we wanted to hear. We spent the next half hour on the phone with Air Canada trying to figure out what went wrong and what they were going to do about it. They were completely useless and unsympathectic at our situation and they were not going to do a darn thing to help us. After days of annoyance with the airline and being stuck in Portland we decided to rent a car and get home!! We went to the car rental area at the airport and went from place to place asking if they did "one way to Vancouver BC". No, no, no, and no! Finally the last one we went to had one car they needed retunred to Canada and we could be the lucky ones to drive it there. What a relief! We hoped in our front wheel drive Ford Taurus and headed North. Once we were getting near Olympia we began to see more and more snow on the sides of the road soon followed by ice and snow on the highway. The right 2 lanes were pretty clear but the far left lane (the "fast" lane) was pretty iced over. We stayed right and witnessed nearly 3 accidents in the left lane. It was intense. We saw dozens of abandoned cars burried by the snow on the sides of I-5, some even facing backwards and we could only imagine how they got into that position. The roads got a little better as we went through Seattle then quickly turned worse as we approached Bellingham. From Bellingham to the border it was like we were drving on an ice skating rink, I don't think we went more than 25 miles per hour. Luckily, being the Oregonian I love, Derek knows how to drive in this stuff, it's the other people that freak me out! The best was when we would see people driving on the clear roads (with maybe a little slush) with full on chains on their tires. We laughed at that! We were happily surprised to see only about 3 cars at the border and we were home in no time! Ultimately we decided that waiting for the 5pm flight would have been a batter and safer option at the end of the day, but we were so antsy to get home that renting a car seemed the most logical at the time. Most importantly is that we made it home safe and we resumed our lives Wednesday morning as normal.
Now I can rewind a bit to Thanksgiving day. As you will see from the pictures, the day began with a hike in the (unexpected) snow at Sahalie Falls. It was gorgeous and the snow was so fresh and soft that it didn't even feel cold! After a hot shower and feeling refreshed, my sister, Annie, and I began cooking the feast. It took us allllll day to cook that meal. Little did we know it would basically just be the two of us doing all the work. We didn't eat until about 8:30pm, I still can't believe how long it took. We enjoyed a big family gathering with tons of food, just as Thanksgiving should be. We followed that by playing a silly Disney trivia game with all my sisters, we had a blast and laughed a lot. That was basically it for the day and my parents and little sisters and brother headed back home late the following morning. It was a short trip for them but ours continued on with a day full of movies, games and leftovers with my big sisters. Derek joined us later for some Cranium and speed scrabble. What a great day with absolutely no shopping! The following morning (Saturday) Derek and I headed into Eugene where I was able to have lunch and coffee with my great friend, Ashley. We headed staright out to Forrest Grove to spend a night with Dereks dad and stepmom, we had a nice evening filled with chatting, picture viewing and a yummy dinner! Sunday morning we made our way to Portland in anticipation of flying out later that day but.....you know the story from there. Enjoy the pics!

American Thanksgiving weekend - November 2006

stranded...

At this very moment in time on Monday afternoon I am sitting at a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. That's right, Portland. As you well now we flew down to Oregon last Wednesday to then drive to Eugene and spend American Thanksgiving with my family (more details and pictures on that to come at another time). Anyway, we drove back to Portland and planned to fly out around 4ish on Sunday. That was quickly changed when we checked out flight status online Sunday morning and noticed our flight had been canceled. Apparently it has been dumping snow in Vancouver and they can't keep the runways clear. We were a little bummed cause we were ready to get home but thought it would be fun to stay another day. We rebooked the flight for today at 1:30 to only find out this morning that yet again our flight was canceled. Derek and I spent a long time trying to decide if we should just rent a car and get home. However since all of the I-5 in Northern Washington is covered with snow as well we decided driving might not be the safest route. We are scheduled to fly out tomorrow morning at 9:20am and have decided that if it is once again canceled then we will rent ourselves a nice SUV and get home! We are sad to be missing the snow in Vancouver but from the looks and sound of it, I think it will be around at least another few days.
The funny and ironic thing about all of this is that we had originally said we were not going to come for Thanksgiving because of the time and energy it took to drive down to Oregon, that is when my sisters bought us plane tickets. But if we would have just driven in the first place we would have been home yesterday. Oh man! Derek has a lot of school work to do and that has been difficult to accomplish but we are trying to make the best of the situation and we have been enjoying time with Derek's sister and her family. And last night we got to go out to McMenamins with Dan and Amanda.
One day soon we will be home in Vancouver again only to come back to Oregon in less than 3 weeks.

Baby Shower fun!!!

On Sunday my friend Grace and I threw a baby shower for our dear friend, Jess. Grace and I had a blast coming up with fun ideas and planning, planning, planning! We were so giddy and had so much fun with it all. The shower went great and Jess is now stocked up for baby! Take a look at the pictures.

Derek and I leave tonight to go to Oregon for American Thanksgiving. We have been blessed by my big sisters with plane tickets from Vancouver to Portland. We are looking forward to it. One more hour of work and then I get to go home and get to the airport! Lots of Thanksgiving pictures to come. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

(with this new web album thing, I think I am going to phase out my Photo Blog. It will still be there but will be more of an archive--FYI).

November 19th, 2006 - Jess's Baby Shower

Yucky icky Vancouver water!

I was going to post a blog about the "happenings" with our water here in Vancouver (for all you non-Vancouver folk who do not know about this already) but instead I will let you read one of my friends Blogs who has already done the work for me :) Thanks Grace!
Go here and read about it. And yes, feel very very sorry for us :(

Update: Read the latest article in Vancouver Sun written today

Last night Derek and I went to the Real Canadian Superstore to go grocery shopping. It was, surprisingly, an okay trip as the store was pretty empty and the check-out lines were short. As we were unloading our cart at the check-out stand I noticed something on the floor that was purple. As I got closer I realized it was a folded up $10 bill (canadian-hence the purple). I awkwardly picked it up, not knowing what to do, held it up to the cashier and said "uh, someone dropped this", his response was "well, you can keep it!". You would think my reaction to this would be "Alright!! Ten bucks! How shall I spend it?!?!" but for some reason I felt strangely guilty, like I had just taken candy away from a kid. I looked around at everyone to see if I could notice anyone with a "I lost ten dollars" look on their face and slowly slipped the bill into my pocket. It is now in my wallet where it will be safe and sound from my husbands recent out-of-control spending habits ;)

Now this is Vancouver!

Our fall got off to a bit of a late start this year as we didn't see much rain until last week. This is quite unusual for Vancouver where we are used to rain for at least 9 months out of the year. And though we got some rain last week, I would have to say that as of today, I can confirm that fall is officially here to stay! It is POURING outside right now, there is standing water everywhere and the wind is crazy howling. I was beginning to get concerned with all the blue skies and sunshine we were experiencing but now I can rest easy. This is the Vancouver we all know and love. Welcome back friend :)

The Departed

Last night Derek and I went to see The Departed in the movie theatre. Which, first of all, is a huge deal because we NEVER go see movies in the theatre, it is so gosh darn expensive up here. We weren't neccesarily dying to see this movie, but we were in need of a good date and it sounded like a fun thing to do on a cold fall night. It was a good movie, an action, quite violent, but with Leonardo Dicaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson in a Martin Scorsese film, you can't go wrong. It was a pretty long movie and about 2 hours into it the sound went out. No sound whatsoever for probably 5-10 minutes. This was annoying and awkward and it was near the end, so it wasn't a good time for the sound to go. But it did come back on and we watched the end in full sound. After the movie though we noticed people who were in our theatre lining up and we thought "reimbursement?", we of course got right in line and got two free movie passes!! All because the sound went out for 5 minutes. So eventhough we weren't too happy to pay $12 each for a movie, it's like we got a 2 for 1 and it was totally worth it!
The movie was good, a lot of swearing, a bit long, a bit violent, but very good, I would recommend it if you are into that type of movie. Although I am sad to say that Mr. Scorsese will probably not be earning his oscar on this one either.

Seattle Weekend , Oct 27-29 2006

This past weekend I went to Seattle and met up with some of my best friends from Oregon, Jess and Kalee. We had a wonderful time full of shopping, eating and just being girls. Sadly, I forgot my camera and therefore don't have even one picture of our trip :( This saddens me greatly. But here is a picture of the 3 of us from the summer when they came to Vancouver to visit, just to give you a visual.
Friday night I arrived at the hotel (our room was on the 16th floor with a view!) around 7:30 and they got in about 2 hours later. Of course we were hungry and ready to get the girls weekend started! We stayed in a fun hotel in downtown Seattle and that night we walked a couple blocks to McCormick & Schmidts for cheap Happy Hour food and cocktails!
Saturday morning we slept in (ahhh) and then headed down to the corner Seattles Best Coffee shop for breakfast. From there we walked down near the water and spent a good amount of time at Pikes Place Market looking at all the fresh produce and flowers for sale, all the fun hand made jewelry, belt buckles, soaps and more! That's a fun place (even if it does smell like fish!). Then, girls will be girls, we headed to Nordstrom Rack and did some shopping! After hours of being on our feet we decided it was lunch time and spoted a P.F. Chang's. Oh man, it was goood! Being with some Oregon State alumni, we had to head back to the hotel and see how the Oregon State football game was going against USC. If you haven't heard about this game then you are way out of the loop because Oregon State shocked the world when they beat USC 33-31 on Saturday. What a victory for them. Needless to say, my friends were happy campers! From there we headed to Seattles own IKEA where the girls went nuts! I guess I am spoiled to live near an Ikea here in Vancouver. We had a fun time looking all around though at all the fun cheap furnitue and things. After Ikea we went out to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory near the water in downtown Seattle. It was a good meal eventhough the tables were awkwardly low and the three of us tall girls were having troubles eating our dinner properly :) When we got back to the hotel we decided to take a soak in the hot tub that was located on the 28th floor with a great view of downtown Seattle and the water. We spent a good hour, hour and a half saoking our sore bods and having great 'girl talk'. That about concluded our day because we were so tired from all the walking around that day.
Sunday morning we walked to a cute little local cafe that was just about a block from the hotel where I enjoyed a local cup of coffee and pear almond brioche...heaven! Then we checked out of the hotel, said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways. The weekend went by way too fast but we had lots of fun and memories. Plus on the way home I got to go to Target and that's always amazing!

BEND---New coffee shop in town!

Attention all Bend friends: for all of those who do not know, my great friends Dave & Majell Beach have opened a coffee shop in Bend, Oregon. It is called Backporch Coffee Roasters. This is not just any coffee shop but the BEST one in Bend and the surrounding areas. They roast their own coffee, they are passionate about coffee and they love people so it is sure to be a great experience all around.
They are located at: 1075 NW Newport Ave
and their blog is: http://backporchcoffeeroasters.blogspot.com/


Please go support my friends and enjoy a great cup of joe! :)

Life has been pretty uneventful in the past week or so. Derek is mid way thourgh his second to last semester at Regent, I am plugging along at work and all is going as normal. We are beginning to really think about what the next chapter in our lives looks like which is scary but also very exciting. The future is quite foggy at the moment and we pray that our eyes will be opened to where we are supposed to go from here. Time will tell and God will guide.
We get to go to Oregon for American Thanksgiving again and have just under a month of waiting to do. My big sisters have blessed us and we get to fly which is going to be a nice change from the 6-9 hour drive we usually endure. Seems far away but I am sure it will come quick. This weekend I am meeting up with my friends Jess and Kalee down in Seattle for a "girls weekend". I could not be more excited!!! It is going to be so nice to spend a weekend away with 2 of my best friends. I haven't really ever spent much time in Seattle, besides a few Mariner games, so it should be fun to explore the city and create good memories with friends. I am sure you will get the rundown when I return. That's all for now.

No longer a blonde!

That's right folks! After the hair fiasco over the weekend I had my hair professionally colored and the result is that I am no longer blonde! Check it out for yourself and please let me know what you think. I am still feeling quite self-concious about it because I have always been a blonde. I think this is going to take some getting used to. I think, too, that these pictures make it look more blonde on top than it actually is. You may have to see me in person to get the full effect, but you get the point for now :)

Also, for all you Vancouverites, I am part of a new blog (with my friend Paul) doing Vancouver Coffee shop reviews. You should check it out and maybe get some opinions about your local cafes. The blog is www.vancouver-cafe-reviews.blogspot.com I just did my first review on the Elysian Room, ENJOY!

I did it!!!

Yesterday, October 15th at 9:30am I ran my first 10k. It was pouring down rain, freezing cold and all on hard cement...it was great! My time was one hour and 36 seconds or so but I am just happy that I completed it without stopping even once. I was soaked through to the bone, my socks were wet, I was dripping everywhere, I had no good rain clothes on and my hair even began to dread itself because of the rain and I looked good ;) I am pretty darn sore today and wanting to just go home and lay down. But at the same time I am quite proud of my accomplishment. I know it's not big marathon or anything, but it is a start nonetheless. Not sure if or when the next race will be, but my hope for next time would be that I can do it under an hour. Check out more pics here and enjoy!


In other news: Yesterday some good friends and I decided to have a "hair party" and we cut, colored and whatever else you can do to your hair. It was great fun except for the fact that my hair is now orange. Well, mainly just the top, but orange indeed! I am quite embarrased of it and have down what I can today to cover it up, but it is still quite obvious. I am leaning towards forking over the big bucks to get it done professionally. That will teach me to do it myself though. Ick!

oops...didn't see that window

I was just sitting here at my desk doing my work like normal and all of a sudden I hear a big thud on the window. "Oh no, that was totally a bird" is what crossed my mind immediately. I went to the window and looked down on the little deck we have outside and sure enough it was a tiny little bird. I felt for it so I went outside and looked at him. He was lying lifeless and I was sad. But I gave him a nudge and alas he was still alive. I picked him up and it looked as though nothing was wrong with him and that maybe he was just a little shaken up (I mean who wouldn’t be after slamming full force into a window). I couldn’t figure out why he was acting so weak though. Until I looked again and noticed that he has totally punctured one of his eyes. Gives me the willies to even think about it. So I sat him up on a table and try giving him a little boost, but I am sure the loss of sight in one eye is quite traumatic and he’s not quite ready yet to spread his wings. But he is still sitting out there now and I am just so sad for him. Why is it that little animals can really tug at the heartstrings? He’s just sitting there all alone in the sun and I can’t help but keep looking outside at him. The picture is not of the actual bird, but it just helps to give you a visual. Poor birdie, I wish there was something I could do.

UPDATE: 10:21am -- I looked outside and the bird is gone. I hope he flew and didn't fall :( YAY!

What a weekend! I had a blast and it went by waaaay too fast. I posted 3 new posts on my picture blog, for your viewing pleaseure. Those pictures will describe my weekend better than I can. It was amazing!

Oh yeah and in just 5 very short days I will be running my first 10k...oh man!!! I signed up and I am jazzed to do it, I am, however, not very excited about running it alone. My friend Levi was supposed to run it with me but he has been sick and doesn't think he will be better in time or in the right shape to run. So I guess I will be at it alone (anyone wanna join me?!?). This makes me nervous as I am a much better runner when I have someone beside me, but I have paid the fee and my name is on the list, so there is no backing down now. Plus I figure that I have got to start somewhere if I ever want to really be a runner. I'll keep you posted.