The Terrorists Won.

Important recent things in my life:

1. Went to Walmart two days before Christmas.

The terrorists have won.

We don’t live near a Walmart, so we never go (I’m not above Walmart, let’s not lie. Sometimes a girl needs elastic waist pants. But I’m not going to drive a half hour for some)  and we’d forgotten the majesty that a SuperCenter can be

Yeah, that’s a woman with a bleached mullet in footie pajamas and fake uggs.

Seriously guys, the terrorists won.

 

2. Went to Bend because it’s awesome. Evidence:

beer + sandwich at GoodLife is $9 before 4 on weekdays. Good beer + a bacon panini. For cheap.  Love it.

(Andrea btw rocks at Bend beer recommendations.)

 

3. Justin Beiber wrapping paper.

It’s real.

 

4. Baby Brother got the best Christmas present EVER

you’re welcome Baby Brother.

 

5. It’s 2012. Bitches.

Awesome

So, life has been busy lately. Teaching, working at the church, high five-ing the pope? It’s a busy life. Plus I was in my gorgeous friend’s wedding, had a blogger meetup, went to California for Thanksgiving, and when you put that all on top of the fact that being awesome like me is a full time job? I’m a slacker blogger.

But here’s just some of the awesome in my life as of late:

While in Indianapolis, I didn’t just high five the pope. Someone foolishly put me in charge of meals. Which resulted in going to a place called Mug ‘n’ Bun. Mug. ‘N’. Bun. How could you not?

It was delicious. And even the bread on my grilled cheeseburger was salty

I like salt.

And I found Matt from the Real World!

True story: Real World New Orleans was on when I was in HS, and one of my best friends was Mormon. So we loved seeing our respective faiths up on TV. And now Matt from the Real World works for a ministry program that my church uses. Rad! And he was super nice.

Also awesome? My college bestie Sam sent me this

If you don’t get it you clearly need to read more Feminist Ryan Gosling.

But the most awesomeness in my life? Totes my husband.

Evidence: some days I teach and work at the church. This can make for some long days. 2nd grade with a chaser of teenagers? Jesus help me. On one of those days I got home from work and found these

(Two tarts cookies! The best. And tiny, so you can eat like 10)

And this

And, most importantly, this

(whoever came up with the idea of pink cans of sparkling wine WITH straws is my best friend)

Marriage is awesome.

Marriage is Awesome and you go to the Beach.

We were on the coast to celebrate our wedding’s birthday. Which meant my husband had to take me out to dinner. Marriage is awesome.

Since we were in a tiny town, dinner options were limited.

Sure, we weren’t that far from other places but driving = one of us staying sober. And everyone knows sobriety is NOT how you stay in love.

But we were across the street from one of the only restaurants in town, Pacific Way Cafe. Which actually had really stellar reviews. Which is good because the other options were McMenamin’s or something called “Great Wall Restaurant and Lounge”

It’s also the town bakery in the morning. Which meant redic bread baskets

Three types of bread. Because you need variety in your carb consumption.

I honestly don’t get the people who give advice like “ask for no bread basket to save calories!”

Do they hate life? Joy? Happiness?

I ate my bread.

And my Cesar salad

For an entree I had halibut

The green beans with it were legit. Fresh and delicious and totally balanced out the fact that I’d just had a bread basket and mashed potatoes and a salad coated in cheese.

Eating in a restaurant with a bakery attached means you have to order dessert.

Strawberry tart for the husband

And creme brulee for me. Because my husband is a weird face and doesn’t like creme brulee.

Whatevs, more for me.

Post dinner we realized we clearly had more drinking to do. So we went to the one grocery store in town, and found some bubbly. And took it to the beach.

True story btw: room temp bubbly out of the bottle is hard to drink. Too many bubbles.

We persevered.

Watched the sun go down

And my husband took what is possibly my new favorite picture of us

Which he entitled “#marriageisawesomeandyougotothebeach”

Seriously, if you’re my facebook friend you can see, that’s the caption.

Cause marriage is awesome. Especially after a bottle of lukewarm bubbly.

 

Touristy

So, still recapping a trip from a month ago. I win at blogging.

But friends, I wanna tell you about two of my favorite places on the Oregon Coast.

We don’t have real beaches here. They aren’t sunny and warm and happy like you think of when someone says “beach”. They’re rainy and cold and for the most part only very determined six year olds actually go in the water. But we still have fun little towns on them.

We moved from Astoria over to Gearhart. Gearhart is a super tiny town, which as the perk of being absurdly quiet and peaceful

There is one bakery in town. Our hotel was across the street from it. Winning. The vegetables on my tart balance out the puff pastry, right?

If you’re an oregonian Gearhart being so chill is weird because just a few miles down the road is Seaside.

Seaside is touristville. You can rent those stupid bikes that hold 6 people, eat your weight in taffy, feed seals at the crappiest aquarium I’ve ever been to, buy shirts saying “Lifeguard” at the $12.99 store, and ride a carousel.

Seaside doesn’t half-ass the tacky, and I love it for that.

Because honestly, we aren’t too good for Seaside, we rode bikes there (Our hotel had bikes you could use for free. Rad. And my darling husband tried to crash his into me on Highway 101. There was blood. Not kidding)

There was a new ridiculous in the best possible way store in Seaside that sold chocolate covered everything

Bacon? Oh yeah, in multiple flavors.

And chocolate covered poptarts. And chocolate covered nutter butters. And chocolate covered marshmallows.

Seaside is popular with families, so the chocolate covered everything store (actually called The Buzz) had a big line. What’s a family vacation without chocolate covered twinkies?

We gave in. And bought fudge

Six flavors of fudge.

It tasted like the world’s most delicious diabetic coma.

So tourist traps? Love ‘em or judge ‘em?

Given the number of sweatpants in our home from the $12.99 store (because you ALWAYS need hot pink sweats that say “Oregon” on the booty) I clearly love ‘em.

Shufflin’

Sad times: I had a dentist appointment this week and one next week. Turns out next week is the tooth out. Which means I was totally unprepared for a lecture on needing to floss better AND lacking awesome painkillers to make that lecture more fun. Boo.

This means you’ll have to wait till next week to hear how smart I am on drugs*.

Anyhow, way overdue trip recap continues!

Here in Oregon we don’t get a whole lot of that “summer” thing I hear other places get. Case in point:

Mid-July. Looks like February.

It’s part of why we drink so much here. Numbs the grey.

Astoria is at the mouth of the Columbia River. There used to be canneries and things here. But the canneries mostly moved where they could better catch dolphins or something, so the piers have been remade into other stuff. Including a tuna museum. Not joking.

We went for breakfast at Coffee Girl out on one of the piers. You could actually drive *on* the wooden pier, but that seemed terrifying. So we parked and walked across. Which meant cars drove past us AND you could see the spots where the wood MOVED when you walked. Equally terrifying. Good choice me!

But I had a big ol’ scone and coffee the size of my head

I’m on a scone kick. Because they taste like straight butter. Butter has like no carbs so I think it makes me skinny. Right?

The husband had a bagel sandwich thang

We looked through the window at the grey river

And then wandered Astoria for a while, so that we could justify lunch.

We went to the Astoria Column

Totally thought it was going to be lame, but it actually had redunk views.

And finally we’d killed enough time to justify eating at what we’d been told was the best spot in Astoria

The Bowpicker

It’s a boat. A real boat. In a parking lot. Serving fish and chips.

So basically, it’s awesome.

Delicious.

And now, since The Goonies was filmed in Astoria, making this almost relevant, my favorite thing on the internets today:

Everyday I’m shufflin’

 

*Unless you went to college with me.