Breaking up with Portland

Fun fact (you should let other people tell you they're fun- Pitch Perfect): This is the longest we've ever lived anywhere in our married lives. It's true.  We love Oregon and we love the friendships we have made out here.  It will always be our 2nd home and we plan on coming back to visit often. But...
It's official.  We're breaking up with Portland.  We handed in our 30 day notice at our apartment complex yesterday and will be packing up a moving truck and driving it to Utah Labor Day weekend.
While trying to come up with a plan for when we wanted to move and where we wanted to move to, we've tried to go through a couple scenarios. It's been a debate between Labor Day weekend and mid September.  We had made up our minds to move September 18th when my parents could fly out and help us load up.  But then our apartment decided to raise rent (yet again) exponentially higher starting September 1st so we knew it was time to move before then.
We still don't know what we're going to do in Utah.  Dustin has been applying for jobs and working with a friend on a business plan to start our own, but we are not positive which direction we are going to take.  I'm sure I can get a job once we get there, but it makes a difference if we're going to be in South Salt Lake County as an associate vs. Utah county with our own practice, so I'm holding off applying anywhere until we can finalize that decision.
Which means we have no idea what we're doing.  All we know is that we definitely want to be in Utah and feel like that's where we are supposed to be.  We are moving in faith and hoping that our little savings will get us through until we figure it out.
Thank goodness for parents.  And family.  We still have a few things to finish up the first couple weeks in September so we will be staying with my aunt and uncle in Battle Ground (cousin sleepover EVERY NIGHT Connor!)  Our stuff will go into storage in Utah until we figure out where we are going. And once we're in Utah, we'll stay at my parent's house until one of us gets a job.
I'm hoping this next month we'll have some firm decisions made and can move forward with life.  It's kind of a scary move going into the unknown, but I know that this is where we are supposed to be.
It will all work out, right?

DC Graduation and Creer visit

Hello there. It's been a while.  But you  know the drill by now, where I take long hiatuses of blogging.  I took a month off for daily blog posts during our Whole30 experience and now I'm back.  Kinda.  We'll see how long it lasts.

Dustin's graduation from the University of Western States receiving his doctorate of chiropractic and masters of sports and exercise science was June 20th.  It was exciting to celebrate graduation and we enjoyed having some family visit for the special occasion.  My grandparents and Dustin's family both came to help party. 

Graduation was at 11:00, then we took a whole lot of pictures and had lunch at Jake's Famous Crawfish with the whole gang (Creers, Gailey grandparents, and Art and Sheri and Jake Gailey).

 

 

 

 After lunch we went to the Portland temple to show the Creers around.  There were a ton of weddings that day and we tried to get Jared to sneak into a red headed family's group picture (he would have fit in perfectly!) but he didn't want to photo bomb them.  It would have made for some hilarious conversation for them.  The rest of the evening we just relaxed playing Mario Kart and taking a nap.

Saturday we went out to Seaside and Cannon Beach.  It was a perfect beach day! Apparently everyone else thought so too because it was sooo busy.  And Cannon Beach had a sandcastle event going on so what should have taken 10 minutes to get from Seaside to Cannon Beach took 2 HOURS.  It was insane. 

 

 

 

 

We met the Brent and Holly Creer gang at Mo's in Cannon Beach and then walked the long stretch of beach to see what all this sandcastle fuss was about.  And it was kind of lame.  But we got some great exercise walking that beach! 

 

 

 

Sunday we got to enjoy Dustin in the special musical number during sacrament meeting before heading up to Roy Washington for a BBQ and softball game.  And by BBQ I mean Brent grilled some amazing steak and halibut.  It was so good! 

 

 

 Monday was a day in Seattle taking a ferry from Bremerton to downtown and exploring the waterfront and Pike's Place.  And then AMAZING seats at the Mariner's vs Red Sox game. 

 

 

Tuesday we drove back down to Portland, dropped Nicole off at the airport, and then fell alseep.  Because we partied so hard.

Wednesday I had to go back to work but Dustin and his dad went on a guided fishing tour on the Willamette.  It was kind of a bummer because only ONE fish was caught by anybody on the boat. Dustin was the one to reel it in, but it was on the guide's fishing line so he got to keep it (lame). We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Claim Jumpers that night with "Thor" as our waiter. 

Thursday we had to say goodbye to the Creers as they headed down the coast and through scenic California on their way home. 

It was so much fun to have them here to visit!
And wahoo for graduation! One last quarter (that we now are 4 weeks through, only 6 weeks to go!)
So proud of my doctor and the all the work he's done to get through school!