Chasing Bluebirds

portland thanksgiving

quick peek of our recent trip to portland... more to come...hopefully!! so busy getting ready for xmas now, so behind, so crazy!
we stayed at the Kennedy School, which is a hotel made from an old schoolhouse. it was the most amazing hotel i have ever stayed in, hands down, i would highly recommend it to anyone. the place has a great restaurant, tons of beer (with it's own brewery), several fun bars (detention hall and honors bar), a fantastic movie theater (you eat pizza sitting on couches in a huge auditorium and watch brand new movies for free), amazing artwork, lots of history and the rooms are crazy fun (chalk boards all around and your closet is the old cloak room). it was inexpensive as well. the vibe is pure fun and the staff were super nice.
it was hard to get pictures though, dark dark halls.
we did several road trips: here is one to the gorge, vista house and several waterfalls


we took a drive to the coast (my love, the beach!)


we did a search for the "goonies house" and stumbled on it
plus a super cute siam mix kitty
views driving to the beach through farms were awesome as well

ok... if this post isn't kooky enough... back to the beach (cannon beach, another goonies movie spot)
ok, more to come... xo portland!

new owls

so i have found a new place to sell my owls, a local shop that specializes in recycled and handmade goods

If you are local, you can find them at Bella Cosa in Bixby Knolls on Atlantic...they have only been open a month so no website up yet. I am happy to have an outlet for some of my craziness, i am thinking more book bags are in order. Looking forward to our trip to Portland Oregon this week!!

been awhile

hey there! busy busy!

found: high school friend who is a make up artist to the stars = camp fire meeting (lizzie got a sunburn)
blisters and a tat
amber got a black eye (emily did too)
crazy sky the other day (coming out from work i saw this lava sky)
hank turns one
emily is running for vice president, 4th grade
camp gvl
yes that is chris in a mullet wig...
future son in laws

tonight was our "kiniya" ceremony (a camp fire tradition to honor service projects) lots of fun even though i lost a kid for the first time as a leader, oops! it ended up ok, but yikes was that scary!! happy friday (tomorrow)!!

Busy Weekend

I spent a few hours on Saturday at a restoration event for Los Cerritos Wetlands, this is historic because the public has not been allowed to walk around on the 66 acres owned by the city because the surrounding area is privately owned. through some agreements and other special circumstances, we have been allowed to enter and WOW! what a thrill! for anyone who reads this blog and lives in a rural community, i can't tell you how much i dream of the day when i can live in a green, wild, lush and totally nature filled environment. i am literally starving for it and when i get the chance to take a walk in anything remotely open, i get euphoric. seriously. so why am i living in this cement jungle? long story and i can promise you, i won't be here forever. for now though, i am working tirelessly on saving these 500 acres of wetlands that would be a welcome reprieve to us nature loving locals. 












we picked up trash, learned about native and non native plants, seed collected (did you know the southern tar plant is endangered and growing right here in these degraded wetlands??) and then sunday:
we had a little garage sale
that took ALL DAY and left me totally drained but
happy all the same! :)

wanderlust

on a strange house search...










so i am dreaming of crazy modern mountain homes and hard core beach houses. obsessed is all i can say. :)

halloween surprise

friday was our school carnival

 

and some time that day

lizzie got the stomach flu so halloween wasn't really that great. at least emily was able to attend a party and go trick-or-treating, but poor liz really had a tough time. she is still not over it today (monday) so it's been rough. no photos of costumes, thank goodness for the camp fire carnival we went to so liz got to wear her costume at least once! hoping we don't all catch this bug, so far so good! :)