My mom's Christmas card is done.

My sister just sent us these pictures from when our family was at Black Butte. I am sure it is a huge relief for my mother, as she frets over her Christmas card for weeks! Honestly, maybe even months. As it turns out, most years she can't even find a picture. So after agonizing over the potential card, she ends up not sending one at all! She is so crazy. Yet, I love her so much.

Here are some of the good ones!

We were dancing!

Had to throw a back-handspring shot in there too! 

Please excuse my bad form in the back-handspring. I had just eaten a large meal and my jeans weren't stretchy. I know... excuses. 

That is all for now. Enjoy your weekends! 

Summer is officially here!

Sorry that I am not so good at posting as of late. It is my crazy busy time at work and things are exactly that... crazy and busy.

I am currently running on coffee, bananas and hard boiled eggs. My life is oh so glamorous. Be jealous.

On a better note, the Nordstrom Anniversary sale has begun. I have my eye on a few items and will be hitting the store this afternoon to “early access” shop. So when I say I am really busy… I mean that I am too busy to blog, but not too busy to shop. Priorities people. Priorities. The annoying piece of all of this is that I got a speeding ticket yesterday and my shopping budget for today went way down. Boo.

I have also been working really hard on my melanin production. I know it sounds intense, but it has mostly required sitting at the pool with my iPad while at Black Butte Ranch (lovingly referred to as BBR) over the 4th. Again, takes precedence over blogging.

Okay. I have no photos to go with this post. So, since it is finally sunny here in PDX, I leave you with my favorite summer things:

Frozen blendy drinks 

Sisters Coffee Company

Pool lounging 

Kickin' it w/ Blake Lively

BBR

View from the top of the Butte

Being outside

Brunch w/ Libby in our hood

Park lounging

BBQing

Baby BBQ that Libby bought

Sundresses

Effortless, yet they successfully keep you cool (in more way than one!)

Fastest written post ever. Happy weekend friends!

Snow on March 22nd? This is absurd.

Okay folks, it is March 22nd and it snowed last night. I don’t know about you, but I am ready to take my wool sweaters to the dry cleaner and pack them away for the season. Come on spring!!! Where are you!? Am I ever going to feel like it is appropriate to wear my new coral chinos?  Or am I going to be stuck in a land where the day’s low temperature lingers around 33 degrees?

I am absolutely ready for the sun. I just got my hair done (shout out to Micah!) for the spring and there are some majorly bright blonde highlights kickin’ it in my do right now. This weather is not conducive to the longing I have to style said hair, nor does it seem right with my newly blonde/ sunny weather hair color. Stupid snow/ rain/ cold. I don’t have a good photo of my new hair to show you. But Micah is a color genius and “we” (in quotes because all I did was drink a glass of red wine… haha) did bright blonde in the front with super subtle ombré that has just a bit of brighter blonde at the ends. I have short hair and get nervous that full out ombré on my lob (long-bob) would look cray.  I promise to show you a picture eventually. Just so you know, it is like she can read her client’s minds. So if you are in the market for a new hairdresser send me an email and I will pass on her info.

Well, I didn’t think I had enough to say to write a post… apparently I always have something to say! Let us also reflect on the fact that my sister and B-in-Law (B stands for Brandon and brother) are in Palm Springs. It is just plain rude. She keeps posting sunny weather photos simply to make the rest of us jealous.

Proof of the rudeness:

Well, that is all my pretties! I hope you have great Thursdays. Try to stay warm this spring. I have lost all hope that the temperature will ever be above 55 degrees.

Leavenworth or bust!

This past weekend I traveled north to Seattle to meet up with a few of my fav ladies and we went over to Leavenworth, WA. It was a Bavarian wonderland!

You may be wondering the same things I was: Why is it called Bavarian? It looks pretty dang German to me! What the H is Bavaria?

Well, let me tell you! It is a region of southeastern Germany. But from what I observed in Leavenworth’s version, there is also a little bit of Scandinavian tradition hanging around. I don’t know if my family is confused or if the Bavarian village is confused. Really, I just think the shops carry inventory to appeal to all travelers.

We had a delightful time. Gluwein, brats, fudge and lots of laughter, how can you go wrong!? Plus we were all bundled in our coziest winter attire.

Here are some photos of us being Bavarian this past weekend:

Such a cute little town! 

Father Christmas is not the same as Santa... and quite possibly cooler! He wears a wreath and has a satchel.  Pretty cool! 

Our poor friends. We are probably embarrassing to be with!

Have a great weekend everyone. Merry Christmas!!

Mishmash moments: Long weekend activities.

With such a long weekend many things happened! I am trying to figure out how to post about everything. The posts are coming out of order. So just relax about it. For now I will post a mishmash. (As I wait for my sister to send the Thanksgiving photos…hint hint) I need to post a brunch review from this weekend too. Jeez! Too much stuff! I guess it is a good problem to have.

The Mish:

On Saturday I went wine tasting with my friend Caitlin’s family. We headed out to Dayton and went to some fantastic wineries. I love that the NW has wine country. Who doesn’t want to be known for something as classy as wine!? Fine by me! It was a lot of fun. I have been friends with Caitlin since middle school. That being said, I am very comfortable with her family… and they expect my crazy. I really appreciate relationships like that. Super lucky! It was a lot of fun and tasting the just bottled new releases made us feel extra important.

Domaine Serene

Red Ridge (They had snacks!)

The Mash:

Libby and I also made Christmas happen in our apartment! We got home from brunch on Sunday and it just needed to be festive! We had gone to see the tree downtown the night before and it really felt like Christmas time was here. Libby and Chris quickly organized a romantic tree cutting date to Sleighbells. Later Libby and I trimmed the tree with our hodgepodge of ornaments and proceeded to watch TV in our reindeer antlers. Yes, we sat there for at least two hours in our reindeer antlers whilst watching Kardash. I have a feeling I will be glued to this season of Kourtney and Kim Take NY… mostly to watch the marriage fall apart. So gross and depressing of me.

I love Christmas in PDX!

Please ignore our demon eyes.

Our tree is almost as big and fancy as the tree downtown! 

Sorry about the crappy iPhone pictures.


Happy kickoff to the holiday season! I need to watch Home Alone soon…

I will only be thankful if I can also have a feast.

Just kidding! We really need to practice giving thanks daily. I try… I really do!... even though I may not always succeed. It is easy to get a battitude (bad attitude) during the season of darkness here in the NW. You know… the darkness and rain that we will get for the next 9 months.

We have a ton to be thankful for and it is nice to get an annual reminder. We get to celebrate the pilgrims bringing smallpox and bland food to the Indians (who were totally fine with their maize btw). You know, to break bread before ultimately forcing them off of their land.

I love the true origin of thanksgiving (the Bible. dur). Fun fact: The pilgrims and other settlers regularly practiced gatherings and feasts of thanksgiving, thanking the Lord for their blessings.

Anne shared these wise words on her blog today and I love it! I think I will be putting this on my bulletin board at work:

I usually do the Thanksgiving feast twice. For the past few years my friends have been doing what we have lovingly coined “Kid Thanksgiving.” Most people call it Friendsgiving or something else of that sort. We called it Kid Thanksgiving in college and it just stuck. Deep down I think we still don’t want to admit that we are adults.

We all end up going home for the real Thanksgiving to celebrate with our families, but we love each other like family and want to celebrate together too! Our crowd is dwindling though… stupid friends keep moving to Seattle. Stupid Seattle taking all my friends like that! Rude.

We still had 7 people though. I consider that a nice full table. I have now officially made four turkeys in my life. I think I am getting the hang of it! I still remember that first turkey though, the excitement that it actually turned out and didn’t catch fire ala Tim Allen’s in The Santa Claus. There is always pure turkey joy and relief when it comes out of the oven intact.

My favorite Thanksgiving dish is green bean casserole. Probably because it is the worst one for you... 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Riding boots used strictly for walking.

Today is officially the last day of summer. I would normally be sad… but I just got new boots and I am dying to wear them! I will be okay if it cools off soon so I can break those bad boys in! Seriously, I am very excited about the boots. I know it is absurd… but at least I admit it. I wish I had a picture of me wearing them. But again, it is still too warm.

Here is what they look like online:

Ahhhhhh. They are just so lovely

They are called the 'Zayra' Boot. On the baby name website (hilar) that Google gave me when I searched the name Zayra, I learned that it means radiance. Something I plan on exuding whilst wearing the boots (and in turn picking up a man). Pretty cool beans right? Boots are a challenge for me to find… due to the issue of big calves (thank you Joanne). But these fit perfectly! It is like they were made for me! The fate of it all is adding to the anticipation of boot season.

Maybe I will do back-handsprings in them. Booya!

The sip du jour.

No, fools. I meant to change soup to sip! Anyway, “That sounds good, I’ll have that.” Get it? Dumb and Dumber?

Sip instead of soup because this post is mostly about soda and coffee.

So I have been a long time drinker of Diet Coke. I affectionately call it DC.  I love the stuff! It is dang delicious. Libby even recently mentioned how good we have been by not having it in our house! Little does she know that we have DC at work! Bahaha. I’m a cheater. Do I wish I didn’t drink it? Yes. Does it leave me feeling bloated and guilty? Yes.

Well, enough of that bologna. The reason for this post is to show you the new branding that I saw yesterday. Check out the new Diet Coke can:

What do you guys think? I get where they are coming from. Making it all hipster and what not. I mean, I am pretty indifferent about what the can looks like. As long as they don’t change the recipe. Remember DC with Splenda!? That shiz was narsty. No wonder it was discontinued. Just thought I would share this recent discovery. I haven’t seen it anywhere else. Is the new can exclusively for Costco? Haha! Obvs not, but I figured this new branding would come with a stellar marketing campaign…. Hmmm.

On a note related to yesterdays post. I thought I would let you guys know that I embraced Fall today.  Apparently I have come far in the past 24hrs. It officially smelled like Fall this morning. It made me really miss walking to class on the Linfield campus. Ahh I can picture it now. Flats on, tumbler in hand, headed down the path that cuts through the quad toward O’Rileys, gotta hang a left and head toward Renshaw (also lovingly known as “The Shaw”). Making this journey with my mass comm. roommates was one of the highlights from Fall senior year. Apparently it is the really insignificant things that stick in your memory.  

Yes, today felt like Fall. To prove how I have embraced it, I will share a few of my September 14^th, 2011 choices with you. I wore my leather jacket today. I even ordered a PSL from Starbucks! I should also mention that I was at Starbucks for 25 minutes this morning. They were understaffed and I felt really bad for them! BUT, as a consumer, I have a particular expectation when it comes to Starbucks coffee. When it takes that long for my drink to come up on the bar it is usually accompanied by a free drink ticket… I am not saying that we should expect things like this… BUT I am just saying that Starbucks has marketed themselves/ gained a certain reputation when it comes to the promptness of their baristas. Just sayin’. 

Okay, well super random post. Whatevs. Drink your DC or your latte and get over it. 

Slowly falling for fall.

Alas, it is almost fall. I have not yet had a morning where I walk outside and it smells like fall is here, but I did see that pumpkin spice is back. Plus every J.Crew, Nords or Piperlime email is adorbs fall stuff. I LOVE fall. I guess I am hesitating because I am not ready to hang up the pool towel just yet. September is by far my favorite month so I am a bit disgruntled as to why I am not more excited for fall to be here. Ah September…It is still sunny at first/ you get your last summer sun shebang, but by the end of the month you are excited about the transition to different clothes. (I can’t wait to wear my blazer, and boots!)

Last year I had may-hor PSL overload. Hopefully it doesn't happen again.

And as it happens every year, football season kicks off (pun!). I am not a major football fan per se… I don’t have “my” team. I like to follow my alma mater and I love going to games/ being in the excitement/ tailgating. I even really like going to game watching events (possibly a shock to some of you). But who doesn't like it when people are all stoked on a team/ chips and guac are in play/ you get to make friends with random people… possibly cute football loving boys at a PDX sports bar. I am quite excited for all of the aforementioned possibilities. Bring it on fall! Hopefully my tan doesn't fade too fast.

Oh, it is also fun to dramatically yell along at plays and calls when I have no idea what was happening. I swear I only looked away for a second! Bahahaha! 

Here are some fall photos from the past:

My roommate's awesome Dad is a football referee and we get to go to games and cheer him on! I always root for the officiating crew. OSU '10

My hetero-lifemate Libby. Just some typical shenanigans on our mobile devices. 

The Patch '09

Cheering for Linfield at Homecoming '09

I hope you have a lovely season!