On the Oregon Trail: May and June Recap

Hi!

The biggest stress in these months was car trouble with our Forester. Derek took it in to have an inspection done and was told that it would cost a lot to have it fixed. While we figured out what we wanted to do, Derek started taking the bus to work and found that he actually enjoyed it.

The car trouble came at a bad time since I already had plane tickets leaving from PDX. We had to rent a car for the first time to make the trip up there. But it all went fine, we even got a free upgrade to a nice, new Nissan Sentra.

I flew in to Columbus without any problems, but at the time, Cambrie and my mom were in New York to see a Laura Marling show. They even got to meet her (see the picture below)! Cambrie has loved Laura Marling's music since Derek first played it for her when she was in middle school.

When they got back to Columbus, we went to the Schottenstein Center for Cambrie's high school graduation ceremony. It was the same building that I graduated in in 2008. The ceremony didn't let out until 9 pm, but we were still able to make it to Olive Garden for a late celebration afterward.

Cambrie quit her job at Donato's Pizza a few months ago and has been working at an AMC movie theater ever since. She was able to take me to see Baywatch and Wonder Woman for free, which was pretty cool.

Because Cambrie has been taking college classes for a year instead of going to high school every day, she decided not to have a school color theme for her grad party. Instead, we got pink and gold balloons and decorated the tables with pink and donut table cloths. I made all breakfast food for the party, and in lieu of cupcakes, we had donuts. It was a hit!

We watched a lot of Netflix while making decorations in the week leading up to the party. Some of the shows we enjoyed together were Riverdale, Anne with an E, and The Keepers.

In my last few days in Columbus, I was able to eat at Mr. Sushi with my family and Sunny Street Cafe with my friend Joy and her boyfriend Dylan.

The flight back to Oregon was fine. The rental car for the return trip wasn't quite as nice. Derek was pretty cramped driving a Ford Fiesta.

When we got back home, we worked on getting our car all cleaned out and ready to sell. We ended up having a pretty good experience at a nearby dealership, Kendall Budget Sales. We traded in the Forester for a Volkswagen Jetta station wagon. We named it Goldie, and we like it a lot!

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, we tried a new restaurant, 541 Sushi (named for the Eugene area code). It was pretty good, but our favorite is still Sushi Island.

Lastly, we've started working on the dollhouse again--the inside is completely finished, so now we are making the windows.

And now, pictures!