October Recap

In October, we had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa the weekend after my birthday! It was great to have them see our home and show them around town for a bit. We had dinner at Grandpa's favorite Shari's restaurant.

We also visited Lone Pine Farms for a fall adventure. It was raining pretty hard and really muddy but still a lot of fun. We went through a huge corn maze, saw some farm animals, and picked out a pumpkin from the patch for our jack-o-lantern.

We watched several Halloween movies: Coraline, Paranorman, The Halloween Tree, The Addams Family, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. To go along with the movies, we had an assortment of fall treats!

And now, pictures!

Colorful leaves!

Lone Pine Farms

Corn Maze

On the hayride to the pumpkin patch

The Jack Skellington-o-Lantern!

Pumpkin seeds

Caramel apple cookies

Pies and caramel apple

Even a Halloween black cat!

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)

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)