May Recap

This month was one of adventure and trying new things. Early in the month we went to the Oregon Zoo in Portland early in the morning when the animals were awake and the place was almost empty. It was a fun, spur of the moment outing, and I think the pictures below will do more justice than my words.

We also took a little road trip for Memorial day weekend to Florence, Oregon and enjoyed the coast, the clam chowder, and salt water taffy. Again, pictures below.

That is about it for us. Work is still going well for me, even expanding as I take on training a new person and getting additional training myself to advance. Courtney and Dinah are holding down the fort at home.

 Oregon Coast

April Recap

Hello hello! 

I'm back in Oregon with lots of pictures of the month and my Ohio trip to share with you all!

For the most part my husband and I continue to be boring home bodies--mostly watching copious television, reading, and my current obsession of blaring the soundtrack to Hamilton (the hip-hop musical about the founding father). I feel like an amateur historian now--I know so much about the life of Alexander Hamilton. I'm pretty good at singing along too--I've memorized "Yorktown (the World Turned Upside Down)" which is no small feat. 

I spent two weeks in Ohio helping my family with the new house (pictured below), picking out prom stuff with Cambrie (also pictured below), and going on a mini road trip to Ft Wayne, Indiana for the Vera Bradley event with my best friend Joy. It was great visiting and being so busy :) Not to mention fun! 

As far as my other half goes, he says he doesn't have much news to report from the month of April. But there have been a few recent developments at work. First, the new Specimen Management night shift supervisor informed him that his position had been changed. So, instead of being a Lab Assistant, he's now a Referral Testing Technician. And this new position has a slightly higher base pay rate! So he got a raise by default! Hooray!

Also, he's been informed that at some point in May, he'll be training one of the new processors to do what he does in the reference department. That way there'll be someone to fill in when he can't be there. And he has been hearing that one of the people on the reference day shift is graduating soon and will be looking to move on to a new job. So there might be an opening soon! Crossing my fingers we can be awake normal hours together instead of living like mole people afraid of the sun!

Now on to pictures!

New month, new chalk board

Date Night!

Cutie!

Cute house huh? 

I actually took this on the way to the airport on my last day. 

It was snowing the first couple of days I was in Ohio!

Most of the house wasn't quite ready for pictures since there is still a lot of painting and unpacking to do, but while I was out, my Mom and I worked on this wall in the living room. 

I was able to change out the brass in the fireplace for the darker color, and whitewash the red brick. Meanwhile my mom painted the walls from a dark forest green to a calm gray and class up the 80's wood mantle and crown molding with a clean cream to go with the colonial look.

And look at this cute couple! 

This is Cambrie and her boyfriend Joe going to prom...

and it isn't pictured but my sister's shoes are periwinkle so it all matches so nicely! 

I helped make Cambrie's corsage and Joe's boutonniere out of ribbon and flowers we found at Michael's craft store. Plus I made her a necklace with periwinkle beads and pearls and used leftover beads glued into the flowers. She also has pearls in her hair. 

I'm sorry to embarrass her but she is just so cute and grown-up looking! I love her so much <3

(Shout out to Joy for her help with the glue gun situation)

My best friend Joy (since 2006--that's a decade guys!) and I on the road to Indiana. 

Shout out to her Aunt Josie and her gracious family for hosting us over night!

Walking out of the event (which was crazy and awesome) I happened upon this guy!

Lastly is this goofy girl. 

Dinah will be six this year--that's 42 in people years! 

And I have no idea why she's so interested in the hutch. 

There is nothing under there but a tool set. I checked.

I think that about does it for us here in Eugene! 

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Stay tuned for May's recap!

March Recap

March really flew by for us here in Oregon. The weather is slowly getting warmer, allowing us to walk outside with only a light jacket. It still rains quite a lot, but it is really quite nice. We’ve been finding new trails and hiking paths—which I’ll be sure to post pictures of below.

We spent some time re-decorating our bedroom, moving furniture around and buying some new pillows and a new comforter. We hope to get a rug at some point, as soon as we find one we like. In the meantime, Courtney is spending a lot of time on Pinterest to get ideas for cute and functional bedroom designs.

Speaking of Courtney—her hair is blonde! She decided to surprise me with it when she was visiting her family in Ohio. It took me forever to pick her out of the crowd at the airport!

Mostly, we have been pretty boring, just watching television at home. We’ve been following political news closely and also enjoying shows with a fictitious government or political lean. Some of our favorites are still the Daily Show, the Nightly Show, and Last Week Tonight but new ones for us include the West Wing and Quantico. The last movie we saw in theaters was Zootopia—which we highly recommend. Courtney loved that the lead character (Judy Hopps, a bunny police officer) is voiced by her favorite actress, Ginnifer Goodwin. And I got a kick out of the film noir-esque storytelling style. But don’t take our word for it—Rotten Tomatoes rates it at 98%.

Our Easter was very low-key this year, but Courtney decorated the apartment with bunnies and made a super-tasty meal including pulled pork sandwiches, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, corn, and potato salad. Again, I’ll add pictures below.

A few work updates now. I've been added to the Sunday rotation, which will mean working one Sunday a month. I've also had another small schedule change. Instead of 8 pm to 4:30 am, I'm working 7 pm to 3:30 am. I've also been told that at some point in the near future they're going to want me to train one of the new processors how to do my job so that there'll be someone to cover my vacations and days off.

That’s about it—we’ll be sure to add April’s recap soon which will include Courtney’s trip to help decorate her mom’s new house and go on a jaunt with her friends from high school.

 View of downtown Eugene from Skinner Butte

In Skinner Butte Park

Panorama view from the top of Skinner Butte

Easter Dinner 

February Recap

Hello to all!

I decided to take on this recap, and the first thing I want to say is that I have such a wonderfully sweet husband.

Because of his work schedule, our sleeping schedule is chaotic and the weekends don't always feel like weekends especially when most places close when we are getting up for the day! Occasionally we are able to go to a late movie or run a few errands, but mostly we are just in the apartment which can get pretty boring. Which is why, for no other reason than to surprise me, he planned a sunrise drive to a lake about a half an hour's drive away. It was so pretty so early in the morning! Didn't I tell you he was sweet?

We took pictures for you guys, I'll put them below. It was pretty chilly out--we're definitely going to have to come back when the weather is warmer. :)

Another couple activity we decided to do together is re-read the Harry Potter books. I had a bit of a head start and gave myself a handicap that was apparently too effective because he won--finishing the seventh book about twelve hours ahead of me.

For Valentine's Day this year we each got each other cards, while I got him candy and he got me an embosser. We are currently stamping and reorganizing our bookshelves in our library.

Lastly, I took some time to visit my family in Ohio and help prepare them to move. My mom bought herself a gorgeous house in Dublin and is finally ready to get out of the rental house they were in. Good thing too, because between my one sister's anime collection and my other sister's musical instruments, I bet my mom felt like she couldn't breathe. Because the closing took a bit longer than expected, I was only able to box stuff up and get the ball rolling while I was visiting. I'll be going back out to Ohio in April to help decorate and unpack boxes. We also went out to a nice dinner to celebrate Cambrie's seventeenth birthday a bit early.

Here are some pictures from our day at Fern Ridge Lake!

I think that is it for February...thanks for reading!
-Courtney

January Recap

As quite a few of you know, we had an exciting holiday season and were very happy to spend time with both sides of the family. First, we went to California to get in a quick weekend of sunshine and exchange presents. We were able to see everyone at Grandma and Grandpa's, church, and for dinner with Ron, Marlene, and Steve. Then we had a day back in Eugene before Courtney's mom and sisters came out to see the apartment for the first time (and exchange gifts! Could that large one be a guitar for Cambrie?) and take a tour of the University of Oregon.

Before the Cherry's plane landed in Oregon, Courtney sliced the tip of her finger off making dinner. We waited in the emergency room for four hours before the doctors gave her medicine and bandaged her properly. Since it was the tip, it was unable to be stitched. But it would heal on its own given 3-6 weeks.

That was definitely scary and Courtney was disappointed she'd be unable to make the Christmas/New Year's dinner she'd been planning for weeks. But the good thing about it all is that, under Courtney's supervision, Cambrie was able to make the dinner almost completely by herself and it was a delicious learning experience!

Courtney really loves this time of year when it comes to music and movies. She played our Christmas albums (favorites this year were our vinyl 'That's Christmas to Me' by Pentatonix and 'Joy to the World' by Pink Martini) and watched Christmas movies (Love Actually, Elf, and many Rankin-Bass classics) and drank tea and hot chocolate from our special holiday mugs. Here are some pictures of our apartment decorated for Christmas!

Two miniature trees in the entry-way 

The wall of Christmas cards! 

To end this recap post, I'd like to say that in lieu of traditional "New Year's resolutions" we like to make a list of our top ten highlights and one of Courtney's is the amount books she read. There's a list of them below, although she says she thinks she forgot to record some of the non-fiction books since they were in her old planner.

Books read January 2015-December 2015

-Elizabeth Warren's 'Fighting Chance'
-Michael Hasting's 'The Last Magazine'
-Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D Levitt's "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything"
-Amy Poehler's 'Yes, Please'
-Brady Udall's 'The Lonely Polygamist'
-Takuji Ichikawa/Terry Gallagher's 'Be With You'

YA books

-Colin Meloy's 'Wildwood Imperium'
-Veronica Roth's 'Four'
-Louise Rennison's 'Withering Tights' and 'Midsummer Tights Dream'
-Jane Yolen's 'Briar Rose'
-Elissa Sussman's 'Stray'
-Suzanne Selfors' 'The Sweetest Spell'
-Sarah Pinborough's 'Poison'
-Rainbow Rowell's 'Landline' and 'Attachments'
-Trenton Lee Stewart's 'The Mysterious Benedict Society' 'TMBS and the Perilous Journey' 'TMBS and the Prisoner's Dilemma' 'The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict'
-Mary Rose Wood's 'The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling' 'TICofAP: the Interrupted Tale' 'TICofAP: the Hidden Gallery' 'TICofAP: the Unseen Guest' 'TICofAP: the Unmapped Sea'
-Emily Carroll's 'Through the Woods'
-Renee Ahdieh's 'The Wrath and the Dawn'
-M.A. Larson's 'Pennyroyal Academy'
-Aaron Starmer's 'The Riverman'
-Kathryn Littlewood's 'Bliss' 'A Dash of Magic' 'Bite-Sized Magic: a Bliss novel'
-Angelica Bank's 'Finding Serendipity'
-Glenn Darkin's 'The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance: The Candle Man Book One'
-R.J. Palacio's 'Wonder' 'Julian's Story' '365 days of Wonder: Mr Browne's precepts'
-Soman Chainani's 'The School of Good and Evil' 'A World Without Princes' 'The Last Ever After'
-Kimberly Griffiths Little's 'The Time of the Fireflies'
-Nikki Loftin's 'The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy'
-Django Wexler's 'The Forbidden Library' 'The Mad Apprentice'
-R.C. Lewis' 'Stiching Snow'
-Jonathan Auxier's 'The Night Gardener'
-Shannon Hale's 'The Princess Academy'
-Merrie Haskell's 'The Castle Behind the Thorns'
-Kate Milford's 'The Greenglass House'
-Diana Wynne Jones' 'Enchanted Glass'
-Heather Vogel Frederick's 'Absoluetly Truly: A Pumpkin Falls Mystery'
-Margi Preus' 'Enchantment Lake: A North Woods Mystery'
-Natalie Lloyd's 'A Snicker of Magic'
-Ingrid Law's 'Savvy' 'Scumble' 'Switch'
-Megan Frazer Blakemore's 'The Friendship Riddle'
-Gary D. Schmidt's 'Orbiting Jupiter'
-Holly Lisle's 'The Ruby Key' 'The Silver Door'
-Jessica Spotswood's 'Born Wicked'
-J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' 'HP and the Chamber of Secrets' 'HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban' 'Beetle the Bard'

Format Change

Just a quick post to indicate a format change to this blog. When I started it, I planned to post something about each week here in Oregon. It wasn't long before I realized that I didn't do enough in a week to warrant making a post on it, and I grew inconsistent.

So, I've decided to make this more of a monthly recap. Hopefully that's a more realistic goal. We'll see how it goes.

Weeks Sixteen Through Nineteen

Not too much to report from the last month. We signed up for the free trial of HBO now, and enjoyed catching up on John Oliver and Bill Maher's shows. We also watched Family Tree, and rewatched Flight of the Conchords, both of which were very good and funny.

We also tried a new grocery store, Safeway, and liked it. We're still figuring out which places to go to for the best deals. It's all part of our continuing exploration and familiarizing ourselves with our new town.

Thanksgiving was quiet, with just the two of us, but it was still a great dinner. Courtney stayed up all night making it. We had turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, corn, sweet potatoes, rolls, stuffing, grapes, mac 'n' cheese, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. And to help serve it all, she used the very last of our unopened wedding gifts, a three-pot warmer. We're still working on the leftovers.

After dinner, we took a nap and then went out for some Black Friday shopping. It was nice to have stores accommodating our schedule for a change. And, since we were out so much later than most of the other shoppers, it wasn't even that busy.

This weekend we went out to see the last Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 2. It was a really good movie, though a bit surreal to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last performance. He was in so many of our favorite films; it's sad to know he won't be in another.

Work has been going well. I've taken over the reference department's evening shift now that my trainer has gone to days. It's a lot of responsibility, and it's been somewhat overwhelming at times having to handle things on my own. But I've received some positive feedback on my work from my fellow reference workers. So I think I'm doing well.

That's all for know. We're looking forward to our upcoming Christmas trip. We'll see you all then!

P.S. Stay tuned to the next post for Courtney's 2015 reading list!