Let's play catch up (according to my iPhone)...

Well we've survived our first year in the rain and in grad school!  Can I get a woot woot?!  Oregon has been good to us and kept us very busy.  School consumes our lives and when we're not studying we're exploring the beautiful Northwest.  I'm in the midst of my summer semester and DJ is off to his first clinical rotation.  Here are some of the things that have occupied our time since last summer.

Pumpkin patches and corn mazes in October

DJ was in charge of roasting our turkey for a Thanksgiving with friends in November

And crafted this gem for his ugly sweater party at school in December 

December also included a wedding in Utah...

hiking in Arizona...

and birthday celebrations!

January brought us a taste of the south at "The Screen Door"

and the delicacy of French pastries at "Pix Patisserie".

February brought visitors who came to stay (so happy to be his neighbor again!)

and visitors who didn't stay long enough!

May brought more visitors and a trip to the coast

(+ the Tillamook Cheese Factory)

June also brought visitors (if you can't tell we LOVE visitors!!!)

2013 was good to us and we're both excited to see what 2014 will bring.  We miss Arizona, but we're still loving our adventure here in Oregon.

Sunshine and Summertime

Summertime is here!  Although Oregon may be lacking the sunshine that I'm used to, there are still lots of fun summer adventures to embark on here.  My favorite so far...berry picking.  The Arizona heat proves to be too hot for strawberry fields, but here in Oregon there are lots of fields and berries for the picking.  A couple of Fridays ago my sister, Christy, invited me to go pick strawberries with her and her kids.  It was a perfect day to be outside and I happily agreed.  

We had lots of fun and bought LOTS of berries.  I'm so grateful to be close to my sister and share fun summer memories with her and her kids. 

Becoming Oregonians

Yes "Oregonian" is a real word.  There is even a credit union here named after the endearing term!  For the month that we've been here, we've been trying to learn the ins and outs of our new home and transition from tourists to locals. 

One thing we've been loving here is the FOOD!  We've gone to some interesting and quirky places that have delivered happy news to our tastebuds.

(Please excuse their french)

This was a food cart in downtown Portland that we read great things about online.  They sell BIG sandwiches stuffed with fresh cut fries and local ingredients.  We really liked the sandwiches we got and definitely plan on returning.  

VooDoo Doughnuts was a must!  It's a big touristy spot here and we had to try it!  They have all sorts of crazy doughnuts with different toppings and frosting.  My favorite was the Memphis Mafia which was a banana fritter with peanut butter and chocolate frosting plus chocolate chips on top.  SO GOOD! I hate to admit it but the first week we were here we went to VooDoo twice!

Last Saturday we went to a farmers market for lunch.  DJ had an elk burger and I had a bison burger.  They were the best burgers we've had here so far.  Then we indulged in a treat of mini doughnuts.(It's taking us a while to get back on our healthy eating plan as you can tell)

We've also enjoyed that there are so many fun things to do here (beside just eating good food).

We decided to take our bikes on the MAX train to the Rose Garden, and then explore the area on two wheels.  The garden was beautiful and the weather couldn't have been better.

Later that night we went on a hike with some of DJ's friends from school. We hiked to a mansion that overlooked Portland.  Again the scenery along the way, and the view of the city were so beautiful.  Everything is so green here and so different from Arizona.

A couple of other things we've explored have been...

the Portland Temple...so lovely!

the OHSU sky tram

and the artwork around town...

Needless to say we're having fun here in our new home!

Adventures in Moving

Four days after my graduation I made another big leap in my life...we moved to Oregon. We set out on the open road on Tuesday and, after multiple gas stops, too much fast food, along with achy joints,  made it to our new home on Wednesday evening. It took us a total of twenty-five hours of driving time, traveling fourteen hours the first day and eleven the next. On Wednesday we unpacked the entire truck, filling our apartment with boxes, then unpacked a majority of the boxes.  Needless to say we got a lot done giving us time to tour our new city on Thursday and Friday.  My mom and stepdad Dave were kind enough to travel with us and drive DJ's car.  We were so grateful they came along for the fun.  They were great company on the road, awesome unpackers, and fun tourist companions.  

 DJ had fun driving the truck for the first couple of hours,and then he decided he liked is Honda much better.  He felt cool because the truckers would speak to him in trucker talk (they'd put on their flashers to signal he was clear to switch lanes), which made him feel like part of the gang. haha 

This is how we started out the drive...

but, after a couple of hours we felt like this!

We enjoyed lots of beautiful orchards and vineyards throughout California that made our drive a little more pleasant.

Mount Shasta was also beautiful. 

But, once we crossed the border into Oregon everything seemed to get ten times prettier and ten times greener.

Here is the view of our new home on the third floor.  We were really lucky to have gorgeous, sunny weather to unpack the truck in.

Since we got so much unpacking done the first night, we decided it would be fun to explore the area while my mom and Dave were still visiting.  We went to check out our school and then did some exploring in downtown Portland.

The campus is gorgeous, so different from ASU and so much smaller.

Portland was a fun place to explore and we even found our little Lukie a birthday present.

There's this really cool bookstore called Powell's Books,that takes up a whole block.  I ended up finding a $5 copy of the Hunger Games, and enjoyed searching through what little books we got to...again the store is HUGE!

After all the fun we had it was time to say goodbye.  There were big hugs and lots of tears, as we were sad to see them go.  We were so grateful for all of their help and all of the fun we had on our moving adventure.  Thank goodness for FaceTime!

(We all randomly ended up wearing plaid this day) 

Even though it was hard for my mom to leave us, she got to talk to this handsome Elder the next day which made her one happy mamma!

We've been in our new home for about three weeks now and we're loving it so far.  DJ started classes this week and has been a busy bee,coming home in the evenings for an hour then off to the library to study. We miss our family, but are enjoying our new adventure here in Oregon.