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.

Vacation!

We spent several days in Washington this past week at Creation Fest for our summer vacay. It was really fun and relaxing, which was just what we needed.


Yes, that's Kory's gum hanging out of his mouth...

David Crowder is just AWESOME--I love him!

Switchfoot was INCREDIBLE! They definitely put on the best show...I'm a big fan.

Thursday was a day that exemplifies my idea of vacation. We slept until about 8:45, got up and ate breakfast and were back in the tent napping by 10 :) After napping for a couple hours, we ate a picnic lunch and headed into a nearby town to spend the afternoon shopping at REI and Target. Heaven for each of us! We went back to camp that evening and I had a turkey leg for the first time. It was incredible! Wow, it was so yummy...I want another one right now! That night we saw Hillsong and Newsboys in concert. Newsboys was very nostalgic for us both and we loved hearing old songs from them and DC Talk.

Friday we spent a good portion of the day reading our books and enjoying 75 degree weather. We went to a youth leader seminar but I didn't really feel like it was worth my time. This guy is supposed to be one of the leading "experts" on youth ministry and I literally heard everything he said in my very first speech class as a freshman in college. So...maybe I am an expert too! Friday's concerts included KJ52, Matthew West, Thousand Foot Krutch and Toby Mac. Quite an excellent day of music! Toby Mac was very high energy and goofy. I definitely had the most fun at his show.

Beautiful view of Mt. Rainier from our tent

Sunday, after we got home, I spent pretty much ALL day watching Veronica Mars. I'm totally hooked on this show now! There are 6 discs in the first season and I finished 4 of them on Sunday :) I really love Kristen Bell and I can't believe I've never heard of this show. It's a real gem!

One of our youth group girls gave me The Shack a couple weeks ago and I started reading it while we were camping. I really like it but was quite confused because the entire foreword explains how it's a true story and then about half-way through reading it, I talked to Kory about it and found out it was a fiction book. I am sure the cover of the book probably tells you that, but this copy of the book was partially eaten by her dog, so the front cover is almost all gone and some of the pages are a bit gnawed on...so I didn't realize this was all made up. After reading the first half of it under the impression that it was a true account, I had a hard time finishing the book. I still like it, but I have to allow some time for my mind to adjust to this fiction story before I finish it. I think I only have about 50 more pages at this point, so I'm pretty close to the end now.

I am on Week 5 of my running program and still going strong so that is encouraging! It's certainly challenging and I never feel like it's too easy, but I always feel like I am making progress and want to keep going. I just got the paperwork to sign up for my first 5K which is scheduled for Saturday, September 11. That's only 6 1/2 weeks away and it seems pretty daunting at the time, but I will continue to take it one day at a time.

And now we're back to the routine of every day life! Church health team meeting Monday night, youth group Wednesday night, followed by a meeting with a financial advisor, small group Thursday night, Myrtle Creek Summer Festival this weekend and trying to fit in a full-time job somewhere in between :)

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!

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.

Long Overdue Update

Wow! We have been very busy lately, which is kind of a change from my typical lifestyle in Oregon. (I haven't blogged in a while, so this one is pretty long to catch you up!)

CrossX was this past week, which was a mission trip for the Hillcrest Youth Group from Abilene, TX where our good friend Evan Simmons is the youth minister. Our two youth groups worked together on service projects all week and then we went to the coast for a weekend retreat together. The week was amazing!! Oh my goodness, I still smile when I look back on everything that happened that week. I feel a lot closer to many of our kids and feel like I really connected with several of our girls. I am going to try to do a girls sleep over this weekend, but I know my 10:30-11:00 bedtime won't work out so well with teenage girls!

I have this renewed energy and excitement about working with the youth group! God just really worked on mine and Kory's hearts this past week and we both feel like it coming right at the 1 year mark was no coincidence. Speaking of which, I can't believe we have lived here for over a year now!! Hopefully I can do an extensive one-year post soon.

Summer has finally really arrived in Oregon and I'm thrilled!! Granted, summer here means that we're in the high 70's and I don't think we have reached 80 yet...so it's perfect! It's warm and sunny in the days and then at night, it's still cool.

We are starting a new small group at church for young adults this week. Kory is leading the group and I'm hosting it at my apartment, so it will require quite a bit of work for me to clean and get things ready, but I can't wait! Hopefully people show up...even if it's only a couple people, I think we'll still be happy to have other church friends to hang out with. Young adults is a pretty loose term...if they don't have grandkids, we'll allow them to come! haha

In just a couple weeks, we're going white water rafting with a bunch of people from our church, so that is guaranteed to be a good time! The only thing I don't like is that the entire day is spent throwing people off their rafts, or squirting them with water guns and soaking them, and it's not quite hot enough for that! It's fun to get in and swim or to sit on the raft and be dry, but I remember freezing to death last year when they would get me wet and then I was sitting on the raft shivering. I would prefer an old person's trip where we don't tackle other people, and ram into their rafts, and surprise attack each other with super high powered water guns.

My laptop has died and been resurrected so many times now! Thank goodness it keeps coming back...it is really old, it's actually Kory's old laptop that is probably 5 or 6 years old, but I really don't want to buy a new one. Hopefully this one will keep hanging on for a while! I need to get my iPhone update so now that my laptop is working again I hope to get that done soon.

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.

Spring is still too cold for me.

40 days of water is OVER and I can drink Dr. Pepper again!! I did pretty well and didn't really crave DP a lot, mostly out of habit. I think I can continue to drink a lot of water, but I'll enjoy a DP from time to time.

Talk about the butterfly effect...The earthquake/tsunami in Chile boosted the economy in Oregon! Apparently, Chile had several plywood mills that were destroyed and that work has now been given to Oregon mills. So, several Oregon operations have been able to hire back some laid-off workers and give them temporary work until the Chilean production plants can get back up and running.

I wish it was warmer already! I have been wanting to go camping for over a year now and we didn't go last summer so I have to keep waiting for it to warm up so we can go. There are several trips I've got planned for this summer including Crater Lake, the Redwoods and going to a few more coastal towns. I wish Kory didn't work on Sundays because that means we can't really go anywhere that's farther than a day trip on the weekends. Oh well, at least we live in a really cool place with a lot of worthwhile destinations just a few hours away.

Easter was pretty boring and that made me sad. I really wanted to dye eggs and get into the spirit, but maybe next year. I spent the entire day Saturday reading Breaking Dawn...and I do mean the entire day because that things is 754 pages!! It was really good--obviously I couldn't stop reading it. I woke up and decided to start it and the next thing I knew it was getting dark outside and the whole day was gone. I love books like that where you get so lost in the story and can't put it down! SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't read all of the Twilight books and don't want to know the ending, stop reading now!!!

I think the ending was a little too picture perfect...everyone lives, is happy, falls in love, etc. I think at least one of the characters should have been killed (a Cullen?) and Jacob should have just had to go on with life without imprinting. I mean, I love a happy ending, but it was just not realistic enough for me. haha I just realized I'm asking for a book about vampires and werewolves to be more realistic.

Even though it sounds lame, I really love playing Sims. Kory had the computer games and got me hooked on them. If you don't know what they are, I would try to explain them to you but that makes them sound even dumber. Basically, you get to build a family and home and live these characters lives for them. haha You can pick jobs, go to work, make friends, cook meals, sleep, swim, go on vacation, have a party, study and learn, and really do most everything you can do in your own real life. It really is fun, even though it sounds like it would be crazy boring.

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!