Tag Archives: Oregon

<3 Oregon

June 11, 2010

I have gotten a bit behind on the blogging scene despite lots of recent going-ons.  Last week we returned from our trip home to Oregon, it was another whirlwind trip but still good to be back and smell the clean air.  I am always so shocked by how green it is, flying into Portland is such a contrast compared to Salt Lake (even though Utah has been having a “wet” spring).  I was able to see almost all of my family, Jason flew in a few days after me and he managed to squeeze in a lot within his few days as well.  I spent some time in Longview at my Mom’s, Jenna played hookie from school we hung out for the day and then went to visit Mom at work,  here she is showing off the baby chicks in her classroom….

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Dan and Kathy hosted a BBQ and we hung out Oregon-style around the fire pit…

img_9517Erin drove up from Corvallis and we toured the Japanese Gardens…

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Chinese Gardens…

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And we ate cupcakes at St. Cupcake…

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Jason and I met up with Steph, Jenna, Mom and Jim to watch a Portland Timbers Game, afterward we met up with Lindsay to have drinks at La Merde and dessert at the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House.

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We went on a hike with Dan, Kathy and Steph to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge…

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Everything was so lush and green…

img_9542We also got to visit with Corey, Alyssa and the new addition Carson!  I didn’t get any pictures but man is he a cute one, I enjoyed cuddling with him, so tiny! I miss you Oregon and everything and one that lives there!

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Congrats to Dr. Dukovcic!

September 10, 2009

Steph defended her thesis yesterday and unfortunately I was unable to go but word on the street is that she did awesome!!!  I am so proud of her, finally she is done with NASH (the building that her lab is in has been such a huge part of her life that we refer to it as if it were alive, NASH!) way to go Dr. Steph!

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Good Things

May 30, 2009

Lots of good things to report on…Kelsey and Michael got married last weekend (Kelsey is Jason’s sister) it was a really nice wedding and they lucked out with some awesome weather!  I snapped just a few pictures this one was before the wedding it is sort of out of focus but I thought it was a nice shot and I like how Kelsey’s dress was glowing.  Also the night before the wedding I got to meet up with my middle school/high school pals Erin and Lindsay which was really fun to see Lindsay again and see Erin for the first time in a few years.

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After the wedding Jason, Steph, Ed and I went to Sauvie Island and hiked out to the lighthouse, it was a great birdwatching hike, very flat with lots of meadow grass, afterward we went back to Jason’s parents’ house for a campfire with Dan had some s’mores and good conversations and then we camped out in the backyard under the stars.  The next day we went up to Goldendale with Dan and Kathy, we left sort of late and rolled into the Goldendale Observatory just in time to get in line to see Saturn through the telescope!  This was way better than seeing M3 the previous weekend, we were able to see Saturn’s rings and two of Saturn’s moons!  I think I might be getting into this star gazing thing, lucky for me Salt Lake also has an observatory too!  The next morning we took our time exploring around the cabin, finding creatures and eating bathroom mints for breakfast :)

frog and stoolBacktracking a bit, one of Kathy’s chickens decided she wanted to sit on eggs and she found her one day off somewhere sitting on a stack of 30 eggs!  (none of which were fertilized) So Kathy gave her some legitimate eggs to hatch and she did a great job and lucky for me I got to be around when they hatched!  It was fun going out to the barn and checking on the progress sort of like being a chicken mid-wife.

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Early on Tuesday morning Jas and I started driving to SLC, we left Beavercreek at 5:30am and got into SLC at 6pm, not a bad drive at all!  We moved in some of our stuff and  judging by the big grin on Jason’s face he was shocked and excited about how wonderful our little house is.  The next morning we went up to the University hospital so that I could meet with the nurse recruiter and then she took us on a tour, it is a very pretty hospital huge windows in all the rooms with mountain views out of all of them seems like if you had to be stuck in the hospital this would be the one!  I also got called for an interview for the trauma/acute care position that I applied for so I have that coming up which is exciting because it sounds really great and the University is the only level 1 trauma hospital in the surrounding region so they are sort of a big deal when it comes to traumas, burns etc. which means I would get to see and learn a lot.  After our tour of the hospital we explored a bit and scoped out the neighborhood we couldn’t get over the mountain views they make everything beautiful even ordinary intersections!

awww mountains!We left SLC early Thursday morning and flew to Ohio to finish packing up our stuff and so that Jason can graduate next Thursday!  Sort of crazy that four years went by so fast, it will be sad leaving Grams and AK; it was nice being close to family.  We are looking forward to our new adventure in Utah, we leave a week from tomorrow and will be stopping in Denver to spend some time with Jason’s Great Aunt Jeanne.

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What have you been doing?

May 21, 2009

Well, a lot has been going on since my last update…I had my 25th birthday and was able to go on a hike with Steph and then have lasagna and cupcakes with my sisters at Mom’s.

Steph packed a picnic that we ate atop of Powell Butte…

Jason arrived in Oregon a few days later we took my Mom on a hike for Mother’s day in Forest Park with some sisters…

I went wine tasting with Kathy and Jason’s cousin Sarah…

Jason, Corey, Jos and I went to the cabin in Goldendale, we explored the stream some and found nettles and fiddle heads to cook for dinner we also got to check out M3 at the Goldendale Observatory.  On the way home we stopped at Oneonta Gorge and had a very memorable adventure…

Lots of pretty flowers blooming in the Gorge…

We had beautiful weather with great views of the mountains while we were in Goldendale and on our hike in the Gorge…

Yesterday we went to the Coast and had amazing weather as well, in fact the next few days are suppose to be sunny and beautiful which is good since Kelsey’s wedding is on Saturday.  In other fun and exciting news I have been slowly but surely working on wedding details things seem to be coming together, I went cake tasting with my Mom and Sisters, yum then Jason and I went back and took some samples over to Corey and Alyssa’s to narrow down our flavors, lemon poundcake, carrot cake with pineapple and no nuts and chantilly chocolate are our top three and luckily we get to choose three flavors!  Then on Tuesday Jason and I met up with Alyssa for a little photo session since she is going to document the wedding, we had a great time with her, go check out her website here! That is all for now there are additional pictures here, Jason and I will be heading to Utah on either Sunday or Monday and then it is back to Ohio for the hooding and then we are off to Utah again.  Oh yes and Jason spruced up the look of the blog :)

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Eugene

May 1, 2009

Last weekend I headed down to see Erin in Eugene, I am not a big fan of this city and neither is Erin so luckily she is going to be moving back to the wonderful city of Corvallis in just a few days now!  Despite Eugene’s grossness we still managed to have a great time!  Friday morning we got up early and headed for the Mckenzie River Forest area to do a hike.  We hiked Frissell Trail which is just east of Blue River It was a steep 7.5 mile hike with a 2500ft elevation gain we were almost to the summit when we came across a large amount of snow luckily we were able to climb to a nice sitting place with a perfect view of Three Sisters and Mt. Bachelor.

It was a really great day for a hike, clear and not too chilly, we sat at our viewpoint for a bit enjoying the scenery and enjoying a delicious funfetti cupcake!

I can’t really remember when this tradition of cupcakes on hikes started…but it has become a sort of staple in our hiking/camping menu.  Here is a shot of us on our perch…

Here is a shot of Erin heading down from our perch, the snow was deep (we sunk in to our knees) there was enough of it that it made hiking the last ~1/4 of mile impossible since this trail had many switchbacks it would be a surefire way to get lost or pummel to our deaths.

Spring was really in the air here lots of little things blooming, we saw a bunch of orchids on the first half of the hike, later we identified these to be Calypso Fairy Slipper orchids which are Oregon natives…

On our way back to Eugene we stopped at Cougar Hot Springs for a soak, it is hard to take pictures of the hot springs since there are always naked people in them and it is sort of rude/creepy to be snapping pictures, here is a picture of part of the reservoir the hot springs are hidden up inside the trees a ways.   For dinner that night Erin taught me how to make Spam Musubi and California Rolls with an improvised spicy tuna, I don’t have any pictures of the actual sushi because we mostly ate them as soon as we made them and never actually sat down, it is funny how after three pieces of sushi you are stuffed, here is a picture of Erin making the sushi…

The next day Erin taught me how to Batik, I don’t have any pictures of my shirt yet but it turned out beautifully.  The picture below is actually from the first day that I arrived in Eugene you can see the Rainbow shirt that Erin batiked for me for my birthday!!

I also got to have another mini reunion with my friend from high school, Ashlee T!  I had given Erin her contact info since Ashlee went to Lane CC for DH school and as it turns out they ended up hitting it off, funny how that works out but it makes sense.  We made sushi again and Erin made miso soup,  Here is a picture of us being funny with our fake teeth…

Well that is the quick version of my visit, we had a nice relaxing stay-cation as they call it.  I am back in Portland and it is another beautiful day here, yesterday was nice too went on an 8 mile run with my Dad in North Plains and then Katie and I met up with my Greenhouse friends Mike and Amber at the Last Thursday gallery hop in NE.

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