Hitting the road, once again.

I would just like to start out by saying that once I get back to Kansas, in the past month and a half I have been sitting in a car for a total of about 80 hours, give or take. That's gross. I'm good with staying put for a while now. This is not to discount how wonderful these trips have been though - I'm not sure when the last time that I saw my sister twice within a month's time was. The holidays have really been good to me, but now it's about time to get back into the swing of things.

Hanging around home has been great, but it is about time I start earning some money again. No obligations and thrifting whenever I feel the call really takes a toll on my wallet. Someone needs to practice a little more self control. Oops.

We're hitting the road this evening, because my crazy friends like to drive at night. My friends and I went out for brunch this morning at The Wild Pear for one last hurrah before we part ways again (Or at least before I leave. They all have another week. For some reason our break schedules never seem to match up that well). My next challenge is fitting all of my new treasures into a somewhat reasonable amount of bags to transport back to Kansas. Turns out, I'm not too shabby at condensing.





Next time you hear from me I should be safely back in Newton.

Did I mention that I love the Oregon Coast?

I feel like the Oregon Coast is something I can describe to people and it sounds just miserable until they actually go there.

My childhood was this: drive a long time to get to the coast wearing ten coats but no shoes and wade in the smallest waves of the Pacific until my feet go numb then sit on a blanket wrapped in a few more blankets and eat potato chips until I can feel my feet again.


Eventually I learned that if you go to other beaches and drive up and down the coastline you can see some pretty awesome waves crashing against large cliffs and it is just downright beautiful. Because this was my childhood, going to beaches intended for swimming is still weird to me. I never expect the ocean to be a tolerable temperature.



Anyways, having a Kansas boy here for the holidays ensures that I try my hardest to make Oregon look amazing. We went out to the coast once already this break, but it was probably one of the most dreary days I have ever experienced there. So we tried again. This time it was beautiful (for the wintertime). We drove up and down around Lincoln City looking for pretty secluded beaches. It's a lot harder to find ones with actual beach access than you would think! It makes sense though, considering a large portion of the coastline is cliffs and large rocks. Oh well, it was still fun.

We leave to head back to Kansas in two more days. While it has been wonderful to be home, I'm ready to head back to school to be with my friends there. Here we come, 2013!

A Wonderful Christmas Time

I hope everyone is still thoroughly enjoying their holiday season.
I've had a wonderful time being home.

Happy Christmas

Christmas eve was filled with wonderful things. On Christmas eve eve we decorated sugar cookies - leave it to my family to end up with a tray half full of zombies and death angels.


Today then we headed off to the Goodwill bins as early as we could, one of my favorite family traditions. If you don't know what the Goodwill bins are, well, they're bins full of used clothes and things and various other treasures that you dig through and pay by the pound. It is glorious. Eventually I had to cut myself off so that I still have some hope of being able to tote all my loot all the way back to Kansas. When we were done, Landon and I headed over to my friend's house for our annual gift exchange.  I think today was the first day it has actually been sunny over this break! It's alright though, living in Oregon you get used to not having snow on Christmas day.


We've started opening all of our presents on Christmas eve after we go to our church's candlelight service, so we enjoyed a nice array of gifts this evening, along with each other's company. Satan Santa came to visit for sure!



And I leave you with this...

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas tomorrow and enjoys the time they get to spend with the ones they love!

Bits o' Christmas

Here are some pictures of various activities over break so far. From Voodoo Donuts, to the coast, to the aquarium, to bowling. Today I went to the dentist (my teeth are wonderful) and then tried my hand at stamping some wrapping paper- I hope it turns out well! It's weird to think that break is halfway over. It seems to have gone so fast, yet at the same time it feels long. I think three weeks will be a good amount of time. I've got to work at psyching myself up for interterm afterall. I'm taking Modern Geometry, but its a co-op class so for half of the month we'll have to get up extra early and drive over to another college to meet.
Until then, I have plenty of time to cook more things.

My Recipe List

Over this break I have the chance to try out some new recipes! I've already accumulated two new cookbooks while being home, but here are a few I found around the internet that I'm excited about.
1. Buttermilk Biscuits and Mushroom Gravy by A Beautiful Mess. A vegetarian alternative to traditional biscuits and gravy!
2. No Bake Chocolate Cake by 101 Cookbooks. I'm planning to make this soon, with a little twist!
3. Rosemary Olive Oil Bread by A Hint of Honey. I made this the other night and it was so easy, and delicious. I'll definitely be making it again.
4. Whole Wheat Blackberry Ricotta Scones by 101 Cookbooks.
5. Brownies by sprouted Kitchen. I made these in my new heart shaped pan, with almond extract and walnuts and almonds they were heavenly.
6. Peanut Butter Honey Milkshakes by A Beautiful Mess. even though the weather is dreary and cold, milkshakes still sound wonderful.
7. Vegan Espresso Glazed Donuts by Minimalist Baker.

What recipes are you looking forward to trying out?

Break Thus Far

So far this break has been going well, I've basically spent all my money. This seems to be a trend whenever I come home. I just love shopping in Oregon so much more! I've been trying to show Landon all the semi-interesting things there are in Oregon. We went to Portland a couple times, and I've been slowly introducing him to my favorite places around Salem. He's been a good sport about my obsession with thrift stores and my need to look through EVERYTHING. I've also been baking! Not a whole lot, but some. I made adorable heart shaped brownies, white chocolate pecan cookies, and rosemary bread. I might have to make that rosemary bread again, because it was wonderful. Yesterday we went to Newport with my parents, but it was probably one of the worst days to go. It was windy and rainy and I'm not even sure if I've ever been to the coast when the weather is that awful before. It's alright though, we'll try and go back out another time before the month is over, but this time the point was for a concert. We stopped at the aquarium and explored a little bit before going to see the Portland Cello Project. They were amazing! I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again now that they're coming home, and we still have two more weeks of break left!






These are all Instagram pictures so far, sorry.

Exciting News!

In the midst of the craziness of finals and the end of the semester, Leah and I have been hard at work preparing our baby. And by baby I mean the blog that we're planning on starting together! Our plan right now is to launch it in January 2013, starting off the year right. I know Leah announced it on her blog a while back, but I decided I may as well make an official announcement on here as well!

So, this is a warning to prepare yourself for January. Get excited, because we are!

A New Holiday Tradition?

For the second year in a row I piled in a car with some friends and drove the 14ish hour drive down to the southernmost tip of Texas to visit my sister. I was excited to go for one, because it's exciting to go anywhere new, and two, because the number of times I've seen my sister in the past few years I can count on one hand. This year it was me, Landon, Jacob, Andrew, Jenae and Martin that went.
We left on Tuesday night after classes were done and they kicked everyone out of the dorms and drove through the night, arriving about 8 in the morning. Our sleep schedules were all messed up so we wandered around Harlingen as Audrey went off to work.
For Thanksgiving I helped Audrey make food and we went and ate with her coworkers/friends. There was so much food and it was all wonderful! On Friday we went to South Padre Island. Its fun, but also so touristy. It was entertaining enough just to drive past all the gaudy buildings. It was a little overcast, so it definitely could have been warmer, but I'm not complaining. It was still glorious. If I just remember to compare the weather to that of the Oregon Coast that I'm used to, even the worst day there (well, aside from Hurricanes) probably would still seem pleasant. The water was actually a decent temperature, which I think I still find it hard to wrap my mind around. I have such a block in my mind against swimming in the ocean from years of wading in the Pacific Ocean and having my feet go numb.






That evening Audrey insisted that to get the real Texas experience we needed to go to a cowboy bar, so we dressed up in our plaids and went to Winks. That was indeed an experience. There was line dancing and it was huge and overwhelming.
Saturday morning we went to the flea market, and I found some nice boots which I was excited about. There was so much stuff to look at, I don't even know how long it took us to walk through all the aisles. After we had ate lunch there, we drove to Progreso to walk across the border to Mexico.



We parked and walked across the bridge into Mexico, where literally all you have to do is put two quarters into a turnstile and they let you in. Nuevo Progreso, which is right across the border, thrives on tourists, so there were so many vendors everywhere. A warning, if you plan to wear boots, just know ahead of time that people will relentlessly ask to shine them for you. I ended up buying a couple blankets, and tried not to spend all of my remaining money on souvenirs. One exciting thing about being across the border was that Andrew and I, the only two under 21, could buy drinks. I decided to make my first purchase a memorable one and bought a pina colada served out of a pineapple. It was great. Once we got back to Audrey's apartment we were all exhausted, and since we were planning to leave at 4:30 am we played a couple rounds of Dutch Blitz and called it a night.
We drove back all day today, stopping in Dallas for lunch with Landon's uncle. We went to Jake's, an awesome burger place right by their house so we were all stuffed for the rest of the ride home.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'm always thankful for opportunities to see Audrey, and it's such a privilege to have friends who will endure the 14 hour drive with me. We have one more week of classes left, then finals week and then I make the 26 hour drive home to Oregon with Landon and Jacob. Hopefully I'll be able to make it through these last two weeks to see another vacation! Thanksgiving was wonderful, but I got absolutely zero homework done, so I guess it's about time to get it in gear.

Thank you Audrey, for putting up with all of us for the week, and I can't wait to see you again so soon at Christmas. I love you!