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.

Bachelorette Lessons

My dear darlin’ friend Liz is getting married next month. Last weekend we had her bachelorette. And we learned some things

1. Sometimes the nice people at the sour beer place don’t quite hear what you ordered and you end up with TWO tastes of every single beer they have.

But you’ll be too busy taking pictures of the pretty drinks to care.

2. There are food carts located conveniently close to the barrel house to help soak up the beer

3. Vegetarian friends will be excited when there’s poutine with meat-free gravy.

(Becca, if you’d just move to Portland you could have it EVERY DAY)

4. Fried pie is always a good choice

and the sort of girl who will share fried pie with you post-fried food lunch is the best sort of girl (yay Rachel!)

5. I know some super pretty ladies

6. Becca (the fantastic matron of honor!) brings the best dresses for Liz to wear (Liz is the disco ball in the middle of us. How great is that dress?)

7. Five hour energy drink is the worst

(This may win the prize of “ugliest picture of me I’ve ever blogged”. And that says a lot)

8. Having pretty cocktails means you’re classy ladies

9. Even if later on you attempt to push the bride to be in a shopping cart.

10. There’s a karaoke “I’m on a Boat”.

I know this because I’ve now done karaoke “I’m on a boat”.

 

(Most of these pics were taken by our beloved Matron Becca, who is awesome)

Happy almost-wedding Liz! I promise to not feed you quite as many shots at your wedding.

No Excuse.

Hey friends!

Remember when I blogged?

Yeah, me neither.

I’d give excuses about “being busy” but seriously? I read a book last week entirely because it boasted on the cover “by the author of The Princess Diaries!”

Clearly if I have time to read books that deep I’m not super busy.

But I was busy, and then I was decompressing and attempting to not kill my garden and buying unnecessary dresses.

But I have done a lot since I last blogged, so let’s play catch up shall we?

The husband and I went to the coast for our anniversary last month. Which sounds all cute and romantic or whatever but seriously? We went because he had a meeting in Astoria. Fun!

Astoria is super old. It has historical stuff. And a brewery. I’ll give you a dollar if you can guess which of those two things we spent more time at

Yup, the brewery! History will be there later.

Ft George makes delicious beer. And it’s in cans so it’s extra sustainable. When you drink it you’re basically planting a tree.

(that my friends is a canning line)

Every day is Arbor Day in our house.

We stayed in the Commodore Hotel which seriously looks like it’s competing on America’s Next Ace Hotel. I mean that in a good way though-it was cute, and a fun mix of like, fishing nets and sleekness.

Plus you could rent Free Willy for free from the front desk (it was shot in Astoria!)

There was a cute little coffee shop attached to the hotel

I had to kill time while the husband was doing his work stuff so I grabbed lunch from it

I like sandwiches with bacon, and they like me back. It also had chicken, pesto, and avocado.

It was delicious. Although I didn’t eat lunch until almost 3, and I’d swam for like an hour (another time killing device-the town aquatic center!) so my arm would’ve been equally tasty at that point I bet.

I wandered Astoria a bit while killing time as well and found a store with this

Not sketchy!

I refrained from buying any. But just barely.

I’ll maybe be back to blogging regularlyish now-it’s my last week of working for the summer.

Plus I am getting a wisdom tooth out tomorrow so I’ll have cool painkillers, which I think will make my writing even more manic and less coherent!  Yay!

Pseudo-Half

Guess what I did this weekend friends?

I ran a half!

Well, kinda.

See, Saturday morning we had Foot Traffic U, and ran 10 miles

(It was hot. There were hills. So “run” might mean “we walked an entire mile in the middle”. Whatevs.)

It was hot here. And humid. I’m a desert animal, and humidity makes me hate the world.

We went home and made some breakfast

(The bagel, the sausage, and the ham are all from Costco. We have issues)

(We ate outside despite being sweaty messes. You gotta enjoy the sun when it’s here.)

and I iced my knees

So that I’d be ready for my 5k that night

Because 5ks are awesome 10 mile chasers right?

I was a run buddy for Girls on the Run. Our practice 5k was in late April, and it was WET. So it’s only fitting that the real one was the hottest day Portland has had so far this year.

(I’m honestly in this pic. I swear. Look towards the middle-see the super long brown hair? Me.)

We did the Starlight run, which goes before the Starlight Parade and follows the parade route. This means you get lots of people cheering for you, which is rad. My girl’s family showed up I think 4 or 5 times along our route screaming for her. Also rad.

We had good intentions of going to watch some of the parade, but running the route it was super crowded. And running 13 miles meant I needed a beer

I left the race bib on because I figured it made it look like there was at least a vague reason I was in a bar looking a sweaty mess in my running shorts.

After my beer I was still hungry, so we went to Hot Lips

And because I’m part hungry caterpillar, I was STILL hungry. So we went to Plaid Pantry

I eat a balanced diet.

Real half is less than a month away!

The Epic Hike

Across Suttle Lake from our campground there Lake Creek Trail goes to Camp Sherman It sounded like a nice hike.

(In my head, btw, Camp Sherman was an old West Town that had like… blacksmith demonstrations and stuff. It’s not. Sad times)

Here’s where the math gets fun.

The lake is about 3.5 miles around. Getting to the other side = 1.75 miles.

The trail was allegedly 4 miles, but it turned out to be longer.

Putting us over 6 miles. And if you’re me, the whole “coming back will take the same number of miles” didn’t register. So 6 is the TOTAL hike.

And, turns out the trail doesn’t take you to Camp Sherman. It takes you near. Where you get on another trail.

See where this is going?

We had a pretty, but long long hike.

When we actually got to Camp Sherman this is what my friendly garmin told me

7.39 miles.

We went to the one and only store in town (sadly not a blacksmith shop)  and ate the lunch of champions

Artichoke dip, trail mix, and PBR.

Classy.

And then, on our way back, things got more ridiculous.

First up, if you’ve been moving for 3 hours, beer hits in pretty quick.

(Especially when you work on finishing off the sixer on the trail)

(It happens.)

Second?

We’re walking in the middle of nowhere. What do we see ahead of us on the trail?

A dog.

We look around for her owner.

No one.

Just the craziest dog I’ve ever seen.

She ran in circles around while we tried to look at her tags. There was a name (Libby) and a PDX phone number.

I got a little sad when we saw her phone number because this dog was so dumb I thought perhaps the simple dog from Hyperbole and a Half was lost again.

(simple dog lives in Bend. It could happen. I dream big)

I feed her, and that cemented in her tiny dog brain to follow us. We hiked a few miles with the world’s craziest dog scampering in and out of sight.

Then, when taking a picture of our canine friend, I realized I suddenly had phone service.

In the woods. Go figure.

I called the number on her tags and talked to a woman who was thrilled we’d found the dog. Which is good because we were less than thrilled at the prospect of figuring out what to do with this creature.

She explained that Libby had chased a deer into the woods and they’d been searching for her.

We agreed to meet up at the lake. I hung up.

And then two deer ran across the path in front of us.

Followed by Libby.

Crap.

We chased her down and a little further up the trail, found campers who gave us some rope to use as a leash.

Libby was not happy.

But we got her safely back to her owner.

And we got back to our yurt, 14.5 miles later, and settled in with some much needed hydration

And that, my friends, was our epic hike. Over 5 hours long, drinking in the woods, and finding a dog.

I’m not sure if the moral of this story is that I should hike more, or never hike again. But it’s one of the two.