Birthday fun

My birthday was this last Saturday. Mike and I celebrated by driving south down the coast to see places we haven't visited since moving to Oregon.

Our first stop was Shore Acres. It's an amazing coastline, but also has a botanic garden there! It was wonderful! As we wandered through the flowers, we could hear sea lions barking and waves crashing! Amazing! You can see all of my photos at my Flickr. We intended to have lunch at a Mediterranean cafe we knew, but they were closed, so we wound up at a local Mexican place. The food was actually quite good (we don't find decent Mexican food around here much!)

We drove back up to our favorite spot, of course, the 804 Trail and walked a ways. There was one spot where there were rose petals strewn on the path.... Maybe someone got married there! :)

Then we headed toward home and had dinner at our favorite steak spot. It was a great, low-key birthday, which I enjoyed very much... and needed! :)

Mike spoiled me with a bunch of movies. I owned them on video tape, but wanted to replace these with DVD or blu-ray. Yay! :)

It was a good way to celebrate turning 36!

Happy Friday!

I don't know how months can go by without posting anything, but that's what has happened!

Lots has happened, but suffice it to say, things are good here in Oregon! We are LOVING summer here - the temperatures remain quite cool (only gotten above 70 a few times!) The farmer's markets are just now finally starting to get yummy veggies in since it has been so cool. But, oh the berries!! We are loving the fresh berries. We've moved from strawberries (my last post) to fresh blueberries now. I'm turning into quite the baker with this fresh fruit around! (A blueberry galette below)

We've had a few visitors and enjoyed the time with them. We have another friend arriving this coming Monday! We love being able to show off our new area. In just one week, we will have been here one full year! Amazing!

I also wanted to share with you a friend's success and new venture! My blogging friend Tanaya has opened a new etsy store! You can go take a look here, and also see her blogging or on Facebook! It's amazingly creative, and I love seeing a friend take off on a creative venture! Good luck!

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying life!

Blogging?

I think about writing a blog post often... but, obviously, I don't get it done!

I have lots to share. So, I'm going to see how I do in the new year and try blogging a little bit more regularly!

We love it here in Oregon! The winter weather is interesting - we love that we are not in the icebox like Colorado, and NO snow! I visited Colorado in early December for a week (to catch up with friends, and work in my office there). It was negative zero degrees all week! Yikes! It felt downright balmy in Portland when Mike picked me up!

The rain all the time is wonderful to both of us. We haven't been affected by any problems with being depressed because of the grey (at least not so far). Some of the storms have been quite impressive. The wind is actually pretty scary during a big storm! We've lost power a couple times, but not for any length of time. We really enjoy seeing the waves after a big storm passes through! It's truly stunning how big they get! (Photos below are from a storm in early November - our first big storm - we spent hours watching the ocean! You can see all of my photos at my Flickr page.)

We celebrated our first Christmas in Oregon with Mike's brother, Jeff and his wife, Geeta. They stayed with us for about a week. We drove all over the coast and saw the sights with them. It was a little cramped in our tiny place, but overall a good visit. (I got sick on Christmas day, so they went around without me after that. I missed out on some pretty cool coastline that Mike will bring me back to see soon!) They are vegetarians (Mike and I are not) so I was a bit worried about the food situation. They took over and did quite a bit of cooking while they were here! Geeta made saag paneer for us, which was wonderful!

Mike is still looking for a job - and we're doing OK on just my salary. We're hoping he can find something nearby in the next six months. If not, we'll have to reevaluate before we sign another lease on our apartment. We may have to move into a larger town for him to find something. Our little Lincoln City doesn't have much in the way of jobs to offer, but we sure do love it! I'm hoping something will come through so we can stay here. I don't want to leave our coast if we don't have to. Salem would be the closest big town, and it's about 2 hours away - inland. Blah!

That's what has been happening in our little world! :)

Celebration!

Can you believe it's been one year since we got married? I really can't. This has been quite a year!

We celebrated by going to Yachats to our favorite place - the Overleaf! We got our favorite jacuzzi room, and spent Saturday/Sunday relaxing by the great shore there! Amazing waves!

We of course enjoyed the restaurants in Yachats too - including our favorite, The Drift Inn.

Here are some pictures and a short video!

1st Anniversary!

On Sunday, Mike and I will celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary!! I can't believe it's already been a year! We are heading out soon to go to Yachats, the Overleaf, where we spent our honeymoon earlier this year. Even though it's so close to home now, we're really looking forward to a night away!

Happy Anniversary, Mike! I love you!

Return to blogging

Maybe... some days I feel like blogging, and other days I don't. Many days I miss the interaction I have had with you all! (If anyone even stops by here anymore!)

Our transition to Oregon has gone really well. We really love our little town and the Oregon coast. The weather is turning to winter grey, but we still love it - if possible, even more than sun. We're hearing from locals that we'll be running into more grumpiness out and about because a lot of people really hate the constant grey. Both Mike and I really like it so far.

We've LOVED the farmer's market this summer - we went every Saturday morning until this last week. It is over until next spring :( The tomatoes have been amazing - and huge bunches of fresh basil! Yum. I've been experimenting with squash to find ones Mike will eat. He has liked the spaghetti squash and the butternut. Not so much the acorn or the delicata. (I love them all!)

We found an amazing organic farm nearby called Barking Dog. We love the place - the produce is awesome and the owners are super-friendly and fun! Again, we're sad to see them close for the winter...

We LOVED the Kite Festival on the beach near us. It was so fun - we spent about 8 hours down on the sand that day. Took lots of photos and videos. We'll definitely look forward to going to the spring festival as well! We're also discovering some amazing local restaurants! We love trying new places. (Favorites so far include Riptide BBQ, Beach Dog, and J's Fish and Chips. Mike is eating fish! Can you believe it?!)

As always, I have taken tons of ocean pictures. I'll share a few, but you can go to my flickr page and see them all if you're interested.


We love our little apartment and our amazing view. Lots of sunrise pictures too - taken from our balcony looking over the lake.


Our cats have transitioned well too. They like being able to go out on the balcony - almost outside!

I'm starting to work on my own website - Off-Center Studio (http://www.off-centerstudio.com/ - coming soon!) so that I can take on some new clients and build some new websites! It's a bit daunting to design my own, but I'm getting excited to do it! I'm also looking forward to taking a couple classes at the culinary center here in Lincoln City!

Adventures in Moving

We made it. A week ago today, we arrived in our new town - Lincoln City, OR.

We moved into our apartment the next morning - August 1. Mike did a great job picking out a place for us. It's small, but we're going to make it work. The views from our windows are spectacular!

It's about a 15 minute walk to the shore. The weather has been great, cool, some sun, some grey, and this morning it's raining.

The cats did amazingly well on the trip, and they are adjusting quickly to their new home too! All in all, it went as well as we could have hoped! Dropping Andrea (my best friend) and Jim (Mike's dad) off at the airport in Portland has been the hardest thing to do! They helped us with the drive, and it was very sad to see them go back to Colorado.


More later! Boxes are calling! (more pictures at Flickr.)

Tattoo re-done

I decided that before we left Colorado, I wanted to get my tattoo re-touched. I was able to get an appointment with the original artist from six years ago!

Sunday was the day. Andrea and Savannah went with me to watch (and laugh at me) and support! What I didn't know (before we started) was that re-doing a tattoo is much more painful than the first time around. Pshew. It was really bad! But, I'm glad I did it! It looks much better now!

Here is what it looked like six years ago, brand new!

As he is getting started - you can really see how much it has faded. It was in great shape according to the artist though - especially for location. Tattoos on feet apparently don't last as well as other place.



The artist at work:
And me, in serious pain. I don't think I'll probably ever have this re-touched again. It was almost more than I could handle. It was NOT that bad the first time though.


And finally, the re-done, added to tattoo. The artist told me he was going to re-do the whole thing because "I'm much better now!"

Photos of our new home!

We are moving - have I mentioned that?! It's starting to sink in for me, but it probably won't hit home until we're actually in Oregon!

Our new place is an apartment in Lincoln City, Oregon. We look out on Devil's Lake State Park, and the ocean is about 1/2 a mile away! Mike took a few pictures for me, since I didn't get to go with him to find our place. The view from our balcony is spectacular!! And, as we'd hoped - we're within walking distance of the shore!

We can move in on August 1, so our next three weeks are going to be crazy getting ready!! Any good tips on how to move across country?! Especially since we have cats who don't like to travel?! Yikes!! (more of Mike's pictures at Flickr)

And the adventure begins...

We are moving! Mike found a great apartment in Lincoln City, Oregon, and we are moving in on August 1st!!!!

We have been talking about moving to the coast for so long that I can't even believe it's happening for real! Mike will be home tomorrow night from OR, and he has pictures. I'll share them when he's home!

The apartment is on the shores of Devil's Lake State Park. We will have a lake view from our balcony. The beach is about a 15 minute walk away!

Your good vibes worked! We're actually doing this! Mike turned in a resignation letter today (via a friend at work - he wrote it before leaving "just in case"!) His last day at the stressful job is July 17! Yayayayayayayay!!

Oregon-ho!

We are moving.

Yes - I said it! We are going to be moving to Oregon in the very near future. Mike and I have made the decision to take a major leap of faith. We don't have our timeline nailed down just yet, but by the end of summer for sure! (I have to stay in CO until the middle of June for sure -I have a ticket to see Rent!!)

We looked at our budget, etc. and Mike is going to be able to quit his hellish job and find something for way less salary, but hopefully happier!

We are currently looking for a rental house on the coast somewhere! (If you have a lead on that, let me know! It's hard to find long-term rentals - a lot are listed as vacation rentals!) We're going to use our long Memorial Day weekend to start sorting and getting rid of "stuff". I have a LOT of "stuff"!! A lot of it has been in the basement since we moved into our house over three years ago! Time to ditch it I think!!

So... our adventure is starting. We are both very excited and it feels like we've made the right decision! Leaving our friends in Colorado will be the hardest part, but they'll come visit!!

Any advice for us as we prepare to pack up and move across the country?! Send us some good vibes if you think about it!