Resolution Follow-Up

So I was looking through old blog posts today and found this one that describes my 2010 New Years Resolution to make friends here in Oregon.

Well, I am happy to report that I did it! There are 3-4 girls that I hang out with on a semi-regular occasion and I would consider all of them to be my close friends. It certainly took work, but I am excited that I followed through on last year's resolution and made it happen!

Rock Climbing

                               

For Kory's 25th birthday, we went to Smith Rock State Park near Bend, Oregon and went rock climbing! It was a lot of fun, although quite scary for me.

Kory on my favorite route of the day--about 85 ft tall.

It was pretty terrifying, but I still had a great time!

A professional climber from France that we got to watch--incredible!



We camped the night before so no showers + helmets all day = greasy nasty hair, but the view is still pretty!

Mom and Dad came to Oregon!

So this is little late, but my parents came to see me in Oregon in August. We had a wonderful time! I wanted them to see the coolest places around here (in my opinion) so we did a lot of driving. It was pretty exhausting, but we saw some incredible sights!

Friday we drove to Crater Lake, which was my first time there. It's one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen! Such incredibly blue water...but wow it is freezing!

Our first view of the water

The man can be a brat, but I love him! :)

Dad hung out on this bench while Mom and I hiked down to the water

The water was just such an incredible color of blue...never seen anything like it

Saturday was my mom's birthday and we spent the day in Newport on the coast. It was pretty chilly, but I've grown accustomed to layering up when I visit the coast, any time of the year.

At the pier in Newport where we watched a lady with a huge knife go crazy on some fish

Kory preached on Sunday morning, so we went to church and then had a very relaxed rest of the day. My parents taught me the value of Sunday afternoon naps, so we enjoyed those after lunch. I went running and then joined my parents on a tour of Myrtle Creek that evening. We drove around to the covered bridges and pretty locations all around this area.

Monday we headed south to California for a trip to the beach and the Redwoods. We did all the touristy things like driving through a tree, which of course is a slight disappointment, but makes for great pictures. It was my parents first time to see the ocean so we made sure Mom got to put her feet in the Pacific. The Oregon coast is beautiful, but it's not really the place to get in the water. Just south of Crescent City we found a beach with warm sand and cool water and it felt great to put our feet in and play for a bit.

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The water felt so nice that day!

I could ALMOST reach all the way across the opening of the tree

Cheesy tourist attraction, but we loved it!

So stinking tall!

This was one of the really fat ones...we didn't even get the whole trunk in the picture

It's always fun having visitors and getting to show them around this incredible place I get to call home!

Rachel's Trip to Oregon

I had such a great time with Rachel this past week! Here are some pictures of our trips to the coast (Bandon, OR) and to Portland for the weekend.

I really love this picture of Rachel and baby Beckham in her belly :)

It was really foggy on the beach, but it was still fun to play in the water and the sand.

Saturday Market is one of the best things--so much to see and eat and do!

Waiting for the MAX for one hour...ugh. Poor 7 months pregnant Rachel--not a great situation.

We got this picture taken in Powell's...notice our names on the marquee board. It's not a very good picture of either one of us, but at least we got cool books!

Many more pictures can be found on my Facebook page.

AND now on to some other random thoughts...

Kory and I watched the Dark Knight last night. I really love that movie! When the movie first came out, there were several people who told me that this was my dopple-danger. Any thoughts? It's always hard to tell if someone looks like yourself, I think. I guess I can see a little resemblance...

My parents will arrive on Thursday and I'm very ready for them to be here! We'll be making lots of fun trips to the coast, the Redwoods, Crater Lake, South Umpqua waterfalls and hopefully there will be some time at the river in there also. It's supposed to cool down quite a bit the end of this week, so hopefully they'll get to experience some beautiful Oregon weather.

It has been brought to my attention that a few people I know have been in Oregon recently and not called me. This practice is unacceptable!! :) For reals though, if you're anywhere near me, please let me know. I'm willing to make a trip and go out of my way to see friends/family if at all possible.

Running is still going really well. I'm currently going 2.5 miles...and as I type that, I have a hard time believing I can really run that far. Granted, some parts of the run are at a snail's pace and I'm barely moving my feet going up those hills, but I am moving and that is the important part!

I have a picture in my cubicle of Rynn, Kecia, Sara and I eating in Rosa's right before I left to move to Oregon. That picture is awesome, but it has some food/drink on the table, and it taunts me every time I look at it. As we speak, I am craving some Rosa's more than life itself. Oh I want it so badly! I know there is one in California, and some times I consider driving the 8 hours or whatever it is to taste that queso.

Friends, Fall and Fatties

Rachel will be in Myrtle Creek this evening and I'm VERY excited to see her!! I will take off work Friday so we can spend the day on the coast and then we'll head to Portland for the weekend.

It's starting to get dark earlier at night and I know that Fall will be here before I know it. I'm actually pretty excited for Fall weather and football and rain and cool temperatures, but this was SUCH a short summer. It rained until the middle of June, so it feels like summer just barely started and now it's already going to be over soon.

I was telling one of my co-workers about my running plans and she said, "Oh great! If you're running that much you're going to get skinny!" So you're saying I'm currently NOT skinny? Hmm...she's obviously trying to give me a complex.

Brynn made an excellent comment about my last post. I think she is absolutely right that God is present in the details and that it takes lots of little moments to add up to a big moment in life. I think God cares about the details of my life, but I think God is working for His for the good of man and for His glory. I don't think God's concern for the details includes my selfish/materialistic wants and needs. If I pray that I'll win my basketball game and the other team prays they will win, then who does God side with? I think God can certainly give and take away health, injury, talent and many other things that would affect the outcome of the game, but I don't think God is going to move the ball in or out of the hoop based on my prayers/wishes. I think we've made God out to be a genie in a bottle where I can wish/pray for anything I want and He'll give it to me.
I believe God has given us free will and that He allows us to make choices. Certainly He is involved in our life and He cares about the little choices I make each day. Those little choices I make are what determines my character and makes me the person I am today. So, Brynn, I hope I understand what you were saying and if I do, then I absolutely agree with you! I should have made myself more clear in that last post. You gave me a great reminder that God knows the number of hairs on my head and he dresses the lilies of the field. He is not a God too big for our little mundane human lives!

I was born for SUMMER!

Here are some pictures from our recent kayaking trip. We had SO much fun! I love it and want to go every day now!

It was gorgeous that day and we just drove down the road and saw a spot to pull over and got in the river.

Kory's a lot better than I am at steering the kayaks...I was all over the place.

This is a good arm and ab workout for sure!

I LOVE my Chacos and am so glad to have them this summer.

Also, I have wonderful friends and family. Thanks so much for your encouragement after my last post about feeling lonely. I feel much better now and God really used you guys to encourage me!

Late Night Thoughts

I am laying here on the couch (bed is covered in clean clothes and I am too lazy to put them all away) and I have a thousand thoughts running through my head so I will attempt to type them out here and then hopefully I can get to sleep.

My coworker won't stop talking about her son's wedding and she told me last week it is a potluck. I am trying not to judge but that just screams tacky!

I really really want a more flexible work schedule. I love my job but I HATE the 8-5, no exceptions. I am not made to live my life in an office.

After a year living in Oregon, I feel strangely put of place. I don't feel like this is home, per se, but it is certainly very familiar. I love it here but I just have this strange feeling that I will never truly belong here. That sounds negative and I don't mean for it to...I just think I will always look at this Pacific NW culture from the outside and compare it to NM/TX. I guess I can't expect to feel the same about a place I lived for one year vs. 23 years somewhere else.

Nobody told me how hard it is to make friends as an adult. Most of my college friends are discovering the same thing I am and I think it took most of us by surprise. I just never really thought about it in college and now I see that I may never have friendships that close again. It kind of makes me sad, but it also makes me really appreciate those friendships and makes me want to keep in touch even more.

For the first time in a very long time, I can look back at the past year and say that not much has changed. I have the same job, live in the same apartment, drive the same car, am in the same relationship, etc. I guess this is called settling down and being stable?

Sometimes I feel like my friends who are married and having babies are speeding ahead in life without me. It is like I am left behind as a college student still dating and they are full blown adults and I can never catch up now. I guess one of the true tests of friendship is whether you can remain friends even when you are thousands of miles apart and are in very different life situations and all you have in common is love.

I really miss TX/NM people tonight. Typically I try not to write this stuff down for everyone to see because I want to be a positive and optimistic person. However, I think it is more important to be real and for me to be able to share what is on my heart--good or bad. Lonely is a feeling I never really experienced until after college graduation. It has been hard for me to learn that missing someone or longing to be somewhere else doesn't mean you can't enjoy where you are right now. I love my life here and absolutely feel that I am right where God wants me. There is no better place to be than in the center of His will!

July Fun!

This month is going to be filled with lots of outdoor fun! I have never been more excited to see sun and warm weather...winter seemed to last forever.

We started meeting with our small group a couple weeks ago and it has been awesome! I love our group and really enjoy our time together each week. We meet on Thursday nights at my apt and we are currently studying the book of Romans. There have been 7 or 8 people coming each week which has been a great group size.

We went kayaking on Saturday and it was SO much fun! We both loved it! Kory got dumped out of his kayak as he went into some small rapids and I almost fell out of mine laughing at him. It didn't take long until I was falling out into the water though...I was about to run into Kory as he was standing in the water and I tried to lean away so I wouldn't hit him and I dove into the chilly water.

I am currently doing a running program called Couch to 5K. It is designed to help you go from not working out at all to running a 5K in 9 weeks. I have completed week one of the program and one day of week two. I do work out occasionally so I am doing pretty well so far. We have a Summer wellness program at work called Summer Buds that starts this week. You form teams of three and encourage each other to complete the wellness goals you each set. My goal is to complete a 5k by the time the program ends in mid-September. So I found a 5k in September in Roseburg (the city where I work) that is for recovering addicts and their family/friends. I plan to run in that to celebrate my older brothers ongoing recovery.

So I know that a 5k (3 miles) isn't super far, but it is much farther than I can currently run and it is a good start for me. I am Definitely not a morning person, so I run in the evenings. I am currently running 3 times a week and it is going great so far.

Our church is going white water rafting this next weekend so I really hope the water warms up by then. It is Getting up into the 80s now, which feels great since it hasn't been this warm in about 7 or 8 months.

I get so behind on laundry and dishes and keeping my apartment clean and I live by myself so I can't even imagine how people take care of a whole family. Goodness gracious it makes me tired just thinking about it! Hopefully I can take advantage of this day off work and get caught up on all these not-so-fun chores.

June Pictures

Here are some pictures from the past several weeks. I am too lazy to rearrange them so they are in random order.

Multnomah Falls just outside Portland

High School Graduations for Youth Group Members

Spring Scenery

Kory and I went for a walk after work one evening and took the camera to capture the beauty of this awesome place where we live. All of these pictures are within a few minutes walk of our apartments.

Birthday Weekend

**WARNING: Very long post ahead!**

I logged into my Gmail account yesterday morning and had 88 new e-mails! Yikes! It was exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Of course, I hadn't logged into my e-mail all weekend and it was my birthday, so that explains most of the e-mails: Facebook notifying me someone wrote Happy Birthday on my wall. Regardless, it is still fun to feel popular.

So, speaking of my birthday, I just had the best birthday weekend ever!! It was so fun! Kory did an awesome job. This was my Golden birthday--turned 24 on the 24th, so the stakes were high :)

Friday night I got home from work to find a bouquet of roses on the table, surrounded by a delicious supper Kory had cooked for me! It was one of my very favorites--Alice Springs Chicken. It's a dish from Outback that Kory makes, but I actually like his version better. He made it in my brand new skillet/frying pan...not sure which it is because I'm not sure what the difference is. haha Anyhow, I'm pumped because I had a really crummy old one and this new pan is awesome!

We had mini eclairs for dessert which were incredible. I had an eclair our first day in Paris that was seriously the best dessert I've ever had in my life. These mini's were a pretty good replica! After dinner we rented The Invention of Lying. I didn't love it--basically the whole premise of the movie is that God/religion is the lie upon which all other lies are founded. There were funny moments, but it's not something I'd recommend.

Saturday morning, I got to sleep in and then Kory gave me my next gift. It was this super cool soccer ball. Although I loved it, I was a little confused about why I got that as a gift...he told me to look at the features on the back of the box and this note was attached:
In case you can't read it, it says, "Do you think the beaches at Bandon are nice enough to kick this around today?"

So we took a surprise trip to Bandon for the day! Bandon is a cute little tourist town over on the coast that I have been wanting to visit for a while now. The weather was so great! Everyone warned him that it would be cold and cloudy and rainy/windy, but it was sunny and almost warm. It was a beautiful day--especially to be January. I got REALLY sick on the way to Bandon. I think it was just car sickness but I have NEVER felt that bad in my entire life. I kept making Kory pull over so I could get out and walk around/see if I could rid myself of this sickness. When we arrived in Bandon, I started to feel a bit better until I got a whiff of all the fresh seafood and that made me even more nauseous! Kory had a delicious lunch:
and this was my gourmet meal:

Luckily the 7Up and crackers did the trick and I started feeling much better. We walked down to the water and then saw some huge waves crashing in the distance. We went off in search of the huge waves and found this awesome beach!

We had so much fun playing on the jetty, walking on the beach, climbing rocks and running away from the tide.

(There are a lot more pictures on my Facebook)

After we left the beach, we went back into town to look in some of the shops and see the sights. We spent quite a while in this cute little bookstore where I found this HILARIOUS book:

Even though I enjoy Twilight, this book made me laugh so much! I would have bought it but I already have several books I have started and not finished, so I don't need to add another one to the pile.

We also got some yummy fudge and went to sit down by the water to eat it and soak up some sunshine. We headed to Coos Bay next since we had dinner reservations there. It was closer than we realized, so we had some extra time to hang out there by the ocean as well. We went to Coos Bay one time last fall, and we found one of my all time favorites spots there. There is a place with hundreds of sea lions and seals that are laying on rocks, swimming around, playing with each other and being very entertaining. I just love watching them!! Supposedly you can see whales there too, but we haven't spotted any yet.

Dinner was at Benetti's, a fancy little Italian place in Coos Bay. We were feeling adventurous since it was a special occasion, so we both tried escargot! It was covered in garlic, so it wasn't that bad. I have never even seen it before, but this was definitely not what I was expecting. You put it on bread, so you really can't taste the snails at all, mostly because of the garlic. However, at one point I bit down on something crunchy (shell??) and I about lost it. If you aren't aware, I am not an adventurous eater and I have a very sensitive stomach (read: I throw up/gag really easily). Kory begged me not to cause a scene in this very nice restaurant, so it took everything within me to keep my calm on the outside while internally really wanting to throw up and gag and make disgusting sounds. I thought I did great--Kory said I did decent.

You got a free dessert for your birthday and we knew this because there had already been two birthdays that evening. Kory scored me a free dessert minus the singing, so that was great! It was SOO good! I wish I could remember what it was called...but just trust me, it was awesome.

We drove back to Myrtle Creek after dinner. Sunday morning we got up and went to church together. We only had a few kids in class so we treated them all to donuts. I got all the donut holes they had in the shop for my b-day! :) So yummy! The kids sang Happy Birthday to me...a bit rough sounding but very sweet. The preacher also decided the entire congregation should sing to me before services were over, so that was a good time :) It's great to be loved though, so I appreciate it.

I got my final gifts when we got home from lunch. I got a pair of Toms shoes from Kory and a new iPod Nano from my parents! I love them both and am so excited to use them :) I had a pretty lazy day on my actual birthday. We laid around and watched Food Network, Extreme Makeover, Man vs. Wild and What Women Want. So I ate and watched TV/Movies all afternoon and evening. That is my kind of day! Kabie cuddled with me on the couch during Extreme Makeover, which is a huge deal. We're trying to teach her to love people and to enjoy being held/cuddling, so it's exciting when she will do it and not run away from you. I like to think that was her birthday gift to me.

SO...if anyone actually made it through this entire post, you can see that I had a magnificent day! I'm excited about 24. I actually feel like a young adult--not a college student anymore. Not that anything in my life will really change, but I do feel older now!