House Guests, Health, Trips, and more!

Hey you guys!

Wow, has it been a while since I've posted! In fact, I don't think I ever even bothered to post about how I went back to Michigan in December to see my family and friends and to have Patrick meet all of them! I'll probably get around to that someday, and I've obviously done a couple of posts since then, but it has been two whole months since my last blog post! Whoops!

The simple truth is that I just haven't done anything that I felt like dedicating an entire blog post to... so now that I've done a bunch of things, you're getting a master post! Get ready for a mishmash of information regarding the things that have gone on in the past two months!

So the first awesome thing is that we finally finished our anniversary puzzle! Do you guys remember the puzzle I had custom made for Patrick for our first anniversary? Well we've been working on it since late November and we FINALLY finished it in January! Not only is it completely put together, but it is also glued within an inch of its life and framed in on the largest piece of wall we have left in our house which is actually in the kitchen (but it looks great!).

We also had our first house guest in January! I failed to mention it in any of my other posts, but Patrick's daughter Jackie came to stay with us about a week or two after we got back home from Michigan. We had a great time showing her around Portland and the surrounding area. I'm so glad that she got to spend some quality time with us, especially with her dad, which is something that obviously doesn't happen nearly as often now that we don't live in the same state as her.

Deschutes Brewery, where we went with Jackie to lunch one day

In February we had another guest-- one that wasn't obligated by familial relations to love us or visit us! I want to give a huge shout out to Jules, who went out of her way to make sure that she stopped up to see us and stay with us for a few days while she took some time to herself. We had a great time!

Julian modeling one of Patrick's bottles of wine, a St. Julien :D

My last post in February was actually about our trip to Disneyland for my birthday, which is a significant event for me because once we got home I discovered some weird symptoms that were really messing with me-- I was absolutely exhausted, spending over 8-9 hours a night sleeping, taking 2-4 hour naps during the day, and being on the verge of falling asleep in between. I spent a couple of weeks that way before finally going to the doctor and finding out that my vitamin d levels were incredibly low. I actually just finished my last weekly vitamin d supplement and I'm feeling much better!

During that time (February, I believe), we went on an adventure and visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory! That was loads of fun-- we got to sample lots of cheeses, eat delicious dairy products at the Tillamook restaurant, and watch cheese being packaged for aging and sale. It was in the most beautiful beach town right on the coast, and Patrick and I were both in love with the awful rainy weather (which is probably our favorite part of living in Oregon so far-- we absolutely love the rain and the gloom)!

The best cheese curds either of us have ever had!

Finally, just this past weekend we were able to take some time to drive back down to San Francisco for the first time since moving out of state. We wanted to surprise our friend Shannon for her birthday at our favorite pub, Cameron's! We both had an amazing time catching up with our family and friends and are so thankful that we were able to coordinate the trip.

The drive down was beautiful!

In fact, shortly after we booked our trip to SF, Patrick's company found out that we were going to be within driving distance (from SF) to one of our favorite clients to go to because of the location... which is Reno, NV! I love Reno! So the day after Shannon's birthday party, we drove from SF to Reno and stayed there from Sunday until Thursday. We explored the town some more (one of our favorite hobbies) and we even went to see a musical production of Footloose at the El Dorado casino & resort! We had a fantastic time, and of course the Footloose song was stuck in our heads for days!

Have you ever had Raising Cane's?

At the El Dorado

Our favorite elephant friends dressed with bowling shirts for the bowling tournament going on while we were there!

The theater ended up being packed full once the show started!

The drive home was gorgeous!

There was a lot of snow on the ground when we got into the mountains.

We ran into a huge blizzard in the mountains, and this isn't even the worst of it! Even as an experienced snow driver, the twists and turns of the mountains were not fun with an inch of snow on the ground!

Eventually the snow cleared up.

And it started raining almost immediately when we hit the Oregon border (but first it snowed!)

Other things that we've done include: A trip to OMSI for OMSI After Dark Superhero Night, a visit with my sister-in-law Renee in Portland, and a surprise visit from a friend of mine from back home who was in the PDX area for work! I also had SEVEN cavities filled... And that's what you get when you skip going to the dentist for five years. REGULAR CLEANINGS, PEOPLE!

Currently Patrick has been travelling almost non-stop for the past month and he's away again right now. We're also working on nailing down my next trip to Michigan! I'll let everyone know when that is as soon as we book the trip. In case anyone is wondering, it will just be me this time! Patrick definitely won't be able to make every trip back home with me because of his work schedule so you'll just have to deal with me for now ;)