On the Oregon Trail

Sunday, November 26, 2017

September Recap

Hi Everybody~!

So September was still as hot as August, which pushed us out of our apartment. Instead of park events though, we went to the movies (Wind River), walked around the mall, and tried new places to eat. We tried the famous Voodoo Doughnuts (which were good, not great) and Mod Pizza. We even went to the Eugene Saturday Market and enjoyed delicious falafel. We've also started a Saturday tradition of eating burgers and listening to the podcast Lovett or Leave It.

Awbrey Park

Also Awbrey Park

Mod Pizza

At Mod Pizza

Hendricks Park

Also Hendricks Park

July and August Recap

Well, it's been a while again since we've posted. Time to get up to date!

Courtney was on a musical kick through most of July. I listened in to a lot of Grease and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat for the first time. While finishing up work on the dollhouse, she played her favorite Harry Potter podcast, Witch, Please and watched The Great British Bake-off on Netflix. It took us a few years, but the dollhouse project is finished (see pictures below)!

We took advantage of a lot of the free Eugene summer activities. There was a Sunday Streets day that had kind of a carnival atmosphere in the streets of Downtown Eugene and a Platypus Clarinet Orchestra (which got its name because it has musicians from both Eugene and Corvallis, which have the school mascots Ducks and Beavers, respectively) concert in a park. There were a couple of movie nights as well. We brought a picnic to the park for Rear Window on Courtney's birthday, and we saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail a week later. We also went to a Shakespeare in the Park showing of Henry V.

My phone had been slowly dying for a while, and in July, it finally gave out. So I got a new one from Costco, and it's been working pretty well so far.

The transition at work to a partnership with Quest Diagnostics has meant a lot of my coworkers have been let go, but my department has been lucky to see a steady enough workload to keep us all on.

We did make some changes around the apartment, though. There were some mold concerns with the books on our shelves in the bedroom, so we moved them all out to the living room, which tends to stay drier.

Towards the end of August, everyone seemed to be talking about the eclipse. We weren't close enough to the path of totality to see anything too spectacular, but it was still fun to experience.

Progress as of July 9

Just finishing up trim

All done!

Inside view

Living room

Kitchen

Study

Waiting for Rear Window to start

Movie screen

Dinah likes it when we get birthday presents in the mail!

Birthday cupcake

Shakespeare in the Park

Waiting for Monty Python to start

Eclipse (the smaller shape below is what the sun actually looked like through the right lenses)

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

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!

Took this on a walk along the Willamette River

Cambrie and Laura Marling

Look at her! So grown up!

Sisters

Freaky strawberry at Cambrie's grad party

Goldie!

Still needs windows, shingles, and edges painted

Looking pretty good (just need bathroom and bedroom furniture)

April Recap

This month, just for fun, we rearranged some furniture in the apartment. We moved the couch and TV in the living room as well as our bed and bookshelves. We had a date night at our favorite restaurant, Sushi Island. Courtney continues to walk to The Daily Bagel, Barnes and Noble, and the Valley River Center mall.

At work, I found at that, at least for this round of layoffs, my job is safe. The deal with Quest is going to mean a significant reduction in the workforce at my lab. But luckily for me, the work that my department does is going to continue to be necessary. We did lose one person from my department, but not due to layoff. Lauri decided to take another position at a company that shares our building, Pathology Consultants.

Dinah doesn't know how to feel about all this change!

Or she just wants some attention...

Courtney's fav sandwich

Lots of flowers popping up all over

Double rainbow!

March Recap

Hello!

Not much happened this month. Cambrie turned 18 on the 2nd. Construction is still going on. I tried new recipes, including a new way to make scrambled eggs and a really delicious barbecue chicken wing dinner. We had a few date nights in March. We went to Unami, a little place that serves sushi burritos. It was pretty tasty. We also ate dinner at a new Whole Foods that opened up. I took Derek on his first trip to Menchie's for their frozen yogurt. We started watching the show Veep and have been really liking it.

February Recap

This month saw the siding upgrade construction project in our apartment complex move to the painting stage. It's been a pain dealing with all of the noise and construction workers and trucks, but it'll be worth it once it's all over.

We ate out at some of our favorite restaurants in February, including Hawaiian Time, Shari's, and East Meets West (a Chinese restaurant that we tried for Valentine's Day and really like). We continue to go to Eugene Public Library on a regular basis, this time renting a few movies. We especially enjoyed Fiddler on the Roof.

We've also bene watching a few cartoon shows like Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and Gravity Falls. They're not only fun, they have some great music, too.

I've been witnessing an interesting transition at work. National chain lab company Quest Diagnostics has entered into a management agreement with the company I work for, PeaceHealth. In February, none of us were entirely sure what this would mean for our jobs. There were a lot of rumors going around, and generally, the announcement and early stages of the transition were handled very poorly. Since I wasn't sure whether I would be keeping my job, I attended a Quest job fair. I didn't know what to expect going in, and it turned out to not be very useful for me, as they were really only looking for phlebotomists and logistics/courier staff. We would all just have to wait and see what would become of our positions.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

December and January

Hello~!

We had a very cold Oregon December this year! There was freezing rain that coated absolutely everything in a sheet of ice for almost a week. Branches from trees all over got so heavy they broke off and were falling on the ground, in parking lots, even blocking some roads!

We spent the month cleaning, packing, and preparing for the holidays. On the weekends, we tried a few new restaurants including Pita Pit, and hung out at the Eugene Downtown Public Library. We had a funny moment when we mailed gifts to California and picked up a package of slippers from Mom in California--a package swap!

We drove to Portland on Christmas day to see and exchange gifts with Tara and family around noon. I was able to see Tara's little sister Erika for the first time since we worked together in 2013. Tara's little boys were very excited to show Derek their new Hot Wheels cars and tracks. Tara and Erika dropped us off at the airport at 1:30 pm and we had a nice flight to Las Vegas and then Columbus. We didn't get in until 12:50 am and stayed up laughing and opening presents with my mom and sisters until 5 am--so a very loooong day for us. But very fun and silly.

We spent a fun and relaxing few weeks shopping, watching movies, and playing board games. A lot of board games--5 Seconds, the Logo Game, and Pass the Popcorn. Also, Derek wins so often it is almost (almost! but not quite) un-fun to play with him. All told, we went to four different locations of our favorite used bookstore, Half-Price Books (thanks mom for those gift cards!). We went to the three most popular malls in Columbus (Polaris, Easton, and Tuttle). We ate at Olive Garden twice.

We went to the famous Columbus Zoo for their Wild Lights event with my family, my best friend Joy, and her boyfriend Dylan. This zoo is huge--over 588 acres. The Wild Lights has over 4 billion LED lights all over the pathways and buildings--some even blink and change to music piped all over the park. Lots of Mannheim Steamroller and other classics.

For New Years we went to Hocking Hills (a popular Ohio destination for honeymooning) with my family and two other families. The cabin we stayed in was very large--it slept 16 people. Including Cambrie, there were six teenagers that took over the pool table and basement. My mom drank wine and caught up with the other moms, Carrie and Brenda. And Derek, Kelsea, and I just kinda floated between the groups eating a lot of chips and goodies. Unfortunately, it rained so we weren't able to sit around the nice fire pit and make s'mores.

We went out with Cambrie and her friend Hannah to pick up her school books downtown and ate at Katzinger's resterant in German Village. The Ruben sandwich, homemade pickles, and matzo ball soup was delicious and warm on such a cold and snowy afternoon.

Our flight home was cancelled due to weather. Ohio was without snow, and Portland had only an inch, but our layover in St Louis was completely shut down. So we went with Cambrie to movies and sat in fancy leather seats to see Moana, Arrival, and Hidden Figures. Hidden Figures was so good! My favorite movie of the year by far.

Once we were back in Oregon, we again hung out with Tara--celebrating her birthday at Buffalo Wild Wings and catching up.

In pet news, when we came home, we found our cat Dinah had a serious sore between two of her toes. We were told by the vet that she has an eosinophilic granuloma complex, which is actually similar to the condition Derek has, weirdly enough. We've been giving her steroid medication and she's had to wear a cone to keep her from licking at the sore area. She hates it! But at least she gets to be treated like a princess and gets yummy wet cat food.

Towards the end of January, our apartment complex started a siding upgrade construction project. It's been very noisy and inconvenient, but hopefully it'll make the buildings look nicer. Unfortunately, there is no end date in sight so we just have to be patient for it to all be over.

I think that about does it for December and January. And now, pictures!

Frozen trees!

In Ohio I grew up with bare trees in winter so it was so strange for me to see colorful frozen foliage!

Pretty!

My guilty pleasure: baklava! I love it sooo much :)

Joy, Dylan, and I at the Wildlights

Pictured above: Cambrie and Derek in Aug 2014 making serious faces at the donation center in the Asian tiger exhibit

Pictured right: These two stretching to save the tigers this year! So cold but very cute!