Mt Hood Fruit Loop

My cousin Jackson in the pumpkin patch

This weekend we got to explore a little more of Oregon by driving/shopping on the Oregon Fruit Loop in Mt Hood with my cousins and aunt. It was such a pretty drive with the leaves all changing colors. We saw a lot of yellows, reds, and oranges!

Pumpkin bowling

We started at a little farm called Rasmussens. The prices for their apples were amazing, but when we had them weighed, it seems like they pretty much jipped us, saying that we were buying 4 lbs of apples when it should have only been 2. Hmm.... oh well. We at least got to check out a pumpkin patch, mini corn maze with a story of "The Princess and the Pear," and a whole "pumpkin land" area with painted pumpkins and gourds to look like fairy tales.

"The princess and the pear"

Little red riding hood and the wolf--heads made from gourds

Three blind mice. Made completely of gourds! :)

Our next stop was at Packer's Bakery. Here we found some great apple cider and HUGE cookies. Definitely a good stop. :)

Sheri, Jackson, and Connor in the corn maze.

We hit up Draper Girls' farms for some cinnamon and sugar dried apples, then ended our fruit loop stops with Kiyokawa's (something like that) which was the best of all the places!! Great apples with friendly staff to cut the apples for you to try a piece. They had an apple tasting section for a minimal fee where you could try just about every apple that exists. They also sold Asian pears! We got one to try, as well as a couple other local produce items.

It was a fun Saturday and we were so happy to be able to go out and explore the Oregon fall!

I Won!

Quick blog post for tonight:

We played Boggle for family night activity. For those of you who know Dustin well, you know that he always wins Boogle. Like, always.

But not tonight.

Though we only played three rounds, I will relish in this victory. 30-28. Highest point word I got this evening: greatest. Yes I am.

I'll be home for Christmas

You can count on me. Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents by the tree!!!!

And no, it's not only in my dreams. Although the original plan was to not go home until March when my lil brother Dallin gets home from his mission, we decided to go home for Christmas!

The reasoning:

Dallin will be getting home the end of March, when Dustin's 2 week quarter break will be happening. Kinda. That's what we originally thought. Now that we have schedules planned for release dates and quarter schedules, Dallin will actually be coming home during Dustin's finals week, and then possibly not even giving his homecoming talk until April when we'll need to be back in Portland.

Nathan, Adrienne, and Elliott's spring break will come before Dallin's return as well, so they changed plans to come home for Christmas instead of March. Thanks guys, you're what got us thinking about changing our plans. We just miss that little Elliott of yours too much. And you too. Both of you :)

Dustin will actually have a THREE week break after this first quarter for Christmas and New Years instead of the usual 2 weeks. An extra week to party!

I currently don't have a job, so it's not an issue to take off holiday vacation time right now. Will I possibly get a job before moving? Maybe. But remember how I decided to stop living my life on maybes and just enjoy come what may? :) I remember.

We will get to be in Utah for Christmas, New Years, my momma's birthday, Evan's 12th birthday (how did he get so old?!), and East Canyon with the Creers!!! Basically, an all around win win win situation with lots of partying.

During Christmas break, I can see if Pandy at Wymount will hire me on for Christmas break help. That alone would pay for the plane tickets! And since my lil sister Ginelle works there, I'd still get to play with her while working. And since we'll be there for 3 weeks, I'll still have lots of evenings and weekends for family and friends!!

Doesn't coming home for Christmas just make sense? We're excited!

Some more of my favorite things

Shout out to Kara Jarvis, cuz I know you watch this show (let's see if you read my blog hahahaha), but I LOVE the show The Sing Off.

This is our first season watching it and I can't believe we didn't watch it before. Not only are the judges some of my favorite artists, Ben Folds and Sara Bareilles (love, love, LOVE), but BYU's very own Vocal Point, with ROBERT SEELY (far left in the picture above) whom I graduated high school with and sang in high school choir with, is on the show!! And they're doing so well!!! I love how the judges or Nick Lachey will introduce them as "the clean-cut BYU boys." It's so great seeing them on there and I hope they win it!

I also have a {relatively} new addiction to Pinterest.

I liked it a whole lot before, but now I am 100% addicted. I feel like I can't miss what anyone posts cuz what if it's AMAZING and I want to pin it too?!!? Okay, so I'm not really that dramatic about it, but I do love it a whole lot. I love trying new recipes I find on it, planning my dream home, finding cute new crafts to make, and being introduced to awesome new blogs out there!

And, just cuz odd numbers are the best and it would be weird to end this post with only two of my favorite things, another one of my favorite things is.... sweater weather.

image from my clothes pinboard on Pinterest. Of course :)

Portland is now approaching sweater weather and I basically am in love with it. It's not too cold to scare you from going outside and enjoying the day, but it's enough that you can curl up at night and snuggle. We've been taking nightly walks and even played frisbee on our grassy courtyard yesterday afternoon and it was perfect weather! Portland, you still feel like vacation, but I could definitely get used to this. :)

Happy Birthday Dustin!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dustin's birthday is still two months away, but we celebrated it this weekend by going to the BYU vs. Oregon State game in Corvalis. I bought him the tickets for a birthday present when we were back in Utah and had money. It was such a great game! There were some intense moments where it was close, but in the end, we prevailed and BYU played so well!! I have to say that I'm very happy that Riley Nelson is the quarterback now. I think he is a much better player than Jake Heaps and it's nice to see the Cougs win! It was fun to be in the BYU section, even though we had a rather annoying older Oregon State fan gentleman right behind us.

The Oregon State Stadium- a sea of orange! The view all around with the rolling hills was so pretty!

Corvalis is a little college town and we had to park clear out in the boonies. This is a view of the stadium from where we parked. Can you even see it? Here's a little closer up view... still hard to see, but the area was beautiful!

Gettin my crafty on

I have so many things I want/need to blog about, but I'll start with my Halloween crafts since it's right around the corner! With my time just chillin' (and enjoying every minute of it), it's been awesome spending time working on some projects. My first project, the BOO woodblocks I picked up my supplies for in Utah, knowing I'd have some time before a job to work on it.

I also made a Halloween themed subway word art picture. It was way fun picking out the fonts and everything, I think I'll make one for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and every holiday!

Sorry that my pictures are truly horrible. The lighting in our family room is awful (there basically is none), and these pics come from my iphone.... someday maybe we'll have a nice camera.

10 Ways Portland is Different...

Moving away from Happy Valley Utah (not to be confused with the actual city that is literally called Happy Valley, OR just 17 minutes away from us) meant a lot of new changes in the lifestyle, culture, climate, um, let's just skip to the end and say basically EVERYTHING.

Here are 10 Ways Portland is Different from Utah County (in no particular order):

1. "Gentleman's Clubs". That's right, you don't need to go to Vegas to see Mr. Peep's Showgirls! You just need to take a left on 122nd from Stark St. and it's less than a minute away. But don't worry, Mr. Peep's isn't the only Gentleman's Club in town. In fact, "Soobie's" is a great landmark for us. It lets us know as we are coming down 122nd that the next turn is ours. Gentleman's clubs are as frequent as ABC stores are in Hawaii. Let's not forget about the Adult Video store either-- they are currently advertising their own special "stimulus package".
2. "Coffee Shacks". You know how in the summer there is a snow cone shack at every corner in Utah county? Same concept, but replace it with Coffee = Portland.
3. Freeway on ramps/exits. In Utah County, you have an on ramp and an off ramp for every single exit. Here, if you miss one, you are going to be taking the scenic route. If there is an on ramp on one street, there is probably not an off ramp for the same road, so plan your directions accordingly.
4. WEATHER. Sorry all you people in Utah who had snow this week. We had a light drizzle and temps in the 60's. When they say it constantly rains in Portland, they really mean that it is usually going to be overcast with a light drizzle. None of that Utah County down pour.
5. Homeless population. Utah County's homeless population really isn't terribly high. Or at least, you don't see as many homeless people. They have a huge homeless population out here. And I guess also a huge homeless KIDS population, which is really sad. We were looking up stuff on Oregon's DMV website and they have a section for addresses if you're homeless. Straight from the site: "Homeless: If you are homeless, you may use a descriptive address such as 'under the west end of the Burnside Bridge.'"
6. Gas. In Utah County, you just pay at the pump or in the store, pump your own gas, and be on your merry way. In Portland, most gas stations post a CASH price, which is usually 10 cents cheaper than a credit card price, and this is not just for ARCO, it's every gas station. Oh, and you aren't allowed to pump your own gas.
   
7. Sales Tax. As in, there is none in Portland. And at the Walmart in Vancouver, just across the border. Which is FANTASTIC because the Walmart in Portland SUCKS. Seriously the most ghetto Walmart I've ever seen in my life. And for crying out loud, it's just WALMART.
   
8. Fashion. Utah may be behind the times as far as fashion goes, but Portland is stuck in the 90's. I feel so well dressed out here. And I shop at Old Navy and JCPenny. Nothing to show off really.
   
9. Church Activity. In good old Salem, basically the entire ward is made up of a couple blocks, which 90% are active in the church. Our ward boundaries are much bigger out here, but our ward seems pretty small. It's bigger than we think, the activity rate is just 10%. That's right, 90% of our ward is inactive. When we introduced ourselves to our bishop our first week here and told him we were from Utah, he said, "Oh good! That means you're active!" Which we laughed at because we know that just because you're from Utah, it doesn't make you active, but now we understand why he would have thought that.
10. Organic. Utah county has a couple folks who are hard core organics. Most people in Portland want to know the exact farm their chicken came from, what they fed them, making sure it really is organic. We haven't been to this place yet, but we hear that at Burgerville, they post pics of the cows and their profile on the walls. Because people need to know how this cow was taken care of. They are that extreme.
    

Even with all these differences in Portland, we love it. :)

These are a few of my favorite things

I love waking up to the sound of rain outside.

I love staying in bed and playing words with friends on my phone.

I love lounging around in my bathrobe while blogging.

I love my big sink in my kitchen that can fit a jelly roll pan in the bottom of it.

I love finding new things on Pinterest.

I love decorating for holidays.

I love finding groupons for things you were going to do anyway.

I love my husband.

Happy Friday!

Home Sweet Home

I have some pictures finally of our new place. Well, at least the family room, kitchen, and big bathroom. I love this apartment. It's close to the main street, but not on the main street and there's a residential area behind us, so it's actually really quiet and our deck faces trees which are pretty to look at. I LOVE how much room I have in this apartment! There is tons of storage, including outside storage on our deck. I also have tons of counter space in my kitchen which basically is heaven for me. I love that we have two bathrooms! It is so fantastic!!

Things have been a little different as we are setting up the house and with Dustin starting school. Our roles in our relationship have totally shifted. Back in Utah, Dustin was the one who did most of the laundry, got our lunches ready, made the bed, and even cleaned the bathroom most of the time. (I know, I married a stud). Now that he is in school taking 30+ credits each quarter, and I am unemployed, I am the one doing the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and it's nice, but I kinda feel out of place. I know I just posted the other day about how I don't want to work, but it feels weird not working... just being home all day. At least our house will always been clean while I'm not working! Thanks to everyone for the suggestions about employment--I think that's exactly what I'll do! Keep enjoying unemployment and projects and blogging, while still looking for a job I'll enjoy. I just found out from another friend's blog today and THE SWEET TOOTH FAIRY is going to be opening up locations in Oregon and Washington! I don't know the areas, but I wouldn't see why they wouldn't open up a Portland or Vancouver shop, so maybe I could work there! I'll just keeping putting my application out there and send good vibes to STF to get a shop up here asap! :)

Now here are the pictures!

Family Room, TV/Entertainment Center/Piano side

Whole Family Room view

Kitchen

Our pantry, in the dining room

Dining Room Window looking out to our deck

Look at all that counter space! There's just as much on the other side of the kitchen too!

The big bathroom, also has washer/dryer in it. Thanks to Lauren and Keilani for these bathroom accessories from my wedding! I love that I have two bathrooms now so I can use them!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and I had the jar with the candle votive and knew I had to do this! I just added a bow to it to make it cuter and match our bathroom colors!

Now it's home sweet home!

Working for the money

Dustin started his classes today and so far they have been great! Just a review for now, but with all the horror stories we've been hearing from other students, he's just getting started. :) With starting classes today, that also means that we got our student loan money check with the remaining balance after tuition/fees. It was more than we thought it would be and are very excited about that! But that also leads me to more internal conflict...

You see... if I was totally honest (and this is my blog so I get to be totally honest about how I feel), I just don't want to work. I. just. don't. want. to. And now that we have more money to live off of than we thought we would, technically, I don't HAVE to work. Because we don't NEED the money, we're actually sitting pretty comfortably. BUT if I did work, that means that we wouldn't have to take out as much student loan, therefore having less to pay off post graduation, therefore having a lot better financial situation once we're done. Which is really brilliant, a much better situation for us in the long run. Also, we'd have more money during school to finish paying off the car loan, my remaining student loans, and start paying off Dustin's undergraduate student loans. Which then again equals MORE MONEY. Duh, of course this all makes sense because working will mean more money.

But working... sigh... why can't there be this amazing job that I would just love love love?! I thought I had found it in a data entry job I tried applying for, but that is since gone as the whole 'moving here' thing got in the way so that I couldn't get all applied for it on time. I keep browsing CareerBuilder and Craigslist for the perfect job, but I can't seem to find it. All the Accounting jobs I could potentially be interested in are all temp positions, which is not my ideal kind of job.

I met with Express Pros Staffing, another company like Robert Half or Accountemps, but it's the same kind of situation--temp jobs. If I get a job, I don't want to keep doing temp jobs, hoping that another position will open up when the one I'm temping for is up. So where oh where is this perfect job that will pay me awesome amounts of money so that we don't take out as much student loans?! I just don't know.

So for now, I guess I'll keep looking. Even though I'd rather just... enjoy my time. Work on projects. Exercise. Blog, blog, blog. Read. Cook healthy meals. Spend time with husband during his school breaks. Etc.

Doesn't that sound like such a better life?! Much more enjoyable? I think so. What do you think?