June 27th 2012

Mom and I drove to Kennewick on Tuesday... we drove on the Washington side, and the views are so different and beautiful.

Lauren and I have been trying to find the most hipster places to eat brunch in Portland. This certainly beat our last brunch place (Irving Street Grill, I think it was called) which played Will Smith and had AMAZING food. This weeks place had no Will Smith and no good food. However it was more hipster. The bathroom was even worse, it was like someone bought a whole old barn and shoved it in one 5ft by 5ft bathroom. And there were individual cloth towels to dry your hands with which I have never seen before... this place is the clear winner for hipsterness, but the food was so disgusting I basically paid $12 for half an egg and a piece of toast.

I did a catering thing, but before relaxed at Starbucks and read The Princess Academy, which is this weeks book club book! It's AMAZING. I don't want to put it down. I may not be able to stop at chapter 13.
Monday I went to Stevenson with my Mom.... Beautiful, as usual. Also I love the cute random things I always see there. I am still pretty charmed by it, I hope it lasts awhile :)

happy birthday!!!

My Dad's 50th birthday was this year- 50 years young that's for sure. My Dad is amazing and has sort of done everything, he's exactly where I want to be at 50... so months ago I was wondering what I would be able to get him for his birthday. I decided to send post cards to all his friends/family and have them send them back with their favorite memories of him. So I got a great friend to design the front, and sent them all out. Here are some that I got back-
   And here are some that I thought were particularly cute/funny-
    Fun, right? I think it was the best present ever! He got other things, too like this box of steaks from my Grandma

(also other not pictured presents, which does not mean that he didn't love them I am sure).
In conclusion- Happy 50th Dad, you're the best!!! xo

June 21st 2012

Stevenson, WA

Today I went to visit Stevenson. Gotta love it... probably no where more beautiful.

Naturally as much Bodin time as we can get... this is at our new TAR (teachers are readers) book club :)
 
and, lucky me, my Mom is letting me take as many of her books as I want for my classroom, since she won't be in the classroom next year. Every new teachers dream come true.

Lots of time with Taryn and Keri. My Mom is determined to make every child in her life a reader. :)

 
Dinner at Edgefields. The perfect place for summer drinks & food.

June 17th 2012

My grad school group- love them.

Now that we are masters we have hoods! :) Also funky sleeves.

There were SO MANY people graduating I could not believe it!!! Just everyone walking in & being seated took FOURTY minutes. Luckily my friend Greg hooked up my parents and Lauren with VIP tickets so they could sit close, because some people were so high up :( Naturally one of the student speakers casually mentioned how he had been in federal prison for three years for crimes related to environmental activism... only in Portland. 

& I think this picture better displays how I spent my time getting ready-

 

June 17th 2012

Graduation was this weekend. Which meant lots of time with all my amazing friends from grad school (we also had a party last weekend to celebrate the end of the 1st year so I am on overload seeing all these people who I adore).

I made all the food for my friends Donella & Greg's graduation party as my gift to them, which was prefect since I had no idea what to get them.

Since I was an insane person and finished my masters degree last year I had my party last year...it was fun to get to celebrate all over again. I didn't really celebrate finishing my masters since last year I just had a combined birthday, graduation and going away party before I left for the Marshall Islands... it was fun to just celebrate this one huge accomplishment and live vicariously though my friends :)

But then I got the bright idea (okay other people got the idea and I decided it was great) that I should walk at graduation. I couldn't walk last year (I was in the RMI then) and I never really got that experience... I didn't even walk for my undergraduate degree since I had already moved home from Boston at that point... so I drug out my Dad's gown and my Mom's hood and decided to make it happen! In retrospect, it was a poor decision but I wanted to wear it at least once in my life. :)