one less car...sometimes

now that we live in the most bike friendly city, travis and i decided to finally buy ourselves some good bikes. (and helmets of course...it's the cool thing now, ya know.) we are both so excited. last night we rode down the street to get our groceries...a whole new side of portland has opened up to me! my goal is to ride the max and/or bike everywhere i can. this is the best city for that!

our living room

okay, so we're starting to be settled. hopefully someday i'll take pictures of our house...for now, here's the living room!

camping on the oregon coast

this is home and i just love it!

it just keeps getting better

i just keep falling in love with oregon. i just love it. it is feeling more and more like home.

my long time friend, brandi, came to visit and we went on a camping trip to the coast this weekend. I LOVE THE COAST!! it is absolutely gorgeous...forest and ocean...it couldn't be better! we went on a few hikes and enjoyed the beach.

i'm just so excited that this is our home. this isn't some place i'm going to just go once and say, "yeah, the oregon coast is nice, i went there once." no, i'm going to know it like the back of my hand. i'm going to find the trails that i love. i'm going to find places that i just want to go and sit all day and soak up God's creation. this is a place that nourishes my soul.

(having technical difficulties with the images right now...check back later for images of the coast! my poor ibook is having problems. I'm in the process or reinstalling my operating system and making it feel better...oh, joy.)

Getting Things Done

i love it when a book comes along at just the right moment. well "getting things done" was that book over the last few weeks. you may laugh, but it really is an incredible book.

this summer has been incredibly wonderful and incredibly stressful. i've been a little bit overwhelmed to say the least...trying to balance so many things. mainly work and the house, but that was enough on my plate. i have had so many things rolling around in my head and i was mentally and emotional exhausted. i felt like i could never get enough done. i was always behind, especially with work. and i'm not normally a person that feels exhausted, but I was. I was bogged down with so many "open loops" in my head and didn't have the passion and creativity that usually drives me.

well, this book walks you through steps of getting everything that is cluttering up your mind written down. i've always been a planner and had a planner right by my side, but lately, that hasn't been enough, i have still felt like there was just too much to do and too much on my mind. (but instead of me thinking, i need to finish this ad and this brochure and organize the kitchen and blah blah blah, i can actually do those things and be present where i'm at.) I took last weekend, went through the steps of the book and i felt AMAZING. i'm not kidding. i can't tell you how much better i feel. and i was able to move through this stressful work week with a clear head. i won't go through all the details of the book and why it was so good.

I'll just say it is worth picking up. it frees you up to be creative, to dream about things you want to do, to brainstorm about projects...it is superb!

nike

while my parents were here, we toured the nike campus. my dad is a sport salesman, so we were able to get a private little tour of the place. i'm not a big fan of sports. and growing up in oklahoma, it was hard to get away from it! But I was excited about seeing the insides of nike. i have to say i have some respect for athletes...i like the analogies that sports can offer to life...about endurance, pushing yourself, staying strong, etc, etc. it was cool walking through the different museums. each building is dedicated to a particular athlete. there were soccer fields, basketball courts...all of which had themes. creativity definitely went into everything that was built I was impressed. 5,000 employees, several restaurants and bars, its own post office, a track that circles the campus, a natural spring in the center of the campus. It felt like I was on a college campus, not a corporate headquarters.

pictures from the vacation...

here's what we've been up to the last week...we had such a great time with my family!

drive

our drive to the cabin

the cabin

what an amazing vacation for our family...we had such a relaxing time hanging out here...grilling and enjoying wine, reading, sitting by the fire, a cup of coffee on the porch, enjoying the hot tub...it was the perfect place for some quality time with the fam...and they even let me throw out some questions for everyone to answer (ya know the questions like, describe one of your scars, what's something you would like to do...i learned my dad stepped on a rose bush and almost had his foot amputated when he was in high school!)

The cabin was located right on the sandy river, just an hour east of portland...

columbia river gorge

on our way back from the cabin we drove through the columbia river gorge...


stopped at the multnomah falls...


went along the columbia river gorge historic highway



and stopped at the latourell falls



visted the vista house, which has a beautiful view of the gorge..



wow! oregon has so many natural wonders!! i can't wait to go on hikes through all of this beauty!!