Newting

Agatha Trunchbull: It's a snake! It's a snake! One of you tried to poison me! Who?! [Matilda puts her hand up] Oh, Matilda. I knew it.

Matilda Wormwood: I just thought you'd like to know, it's not a snake. It's a newt.

Agatha Trunchbull: What did you say?

Matilda Wormwood: It's a newt, Ms. Trunchbull.

Agatha Trunchbull: [sharply] Stand up, you villainous sack of goat-slime! You did this!

We had a lot of errands to run today including groceries, I was able to talk JD into going to Tualatin Hills Nature Park that I pass every day on my way to and from work.  It was so much fun.  The last time we came JD was sorely disappointed to not find any newts like the warning signs at the entrance indicated.  This time however, we found four newts, ducks, worms, a squirrel, geese, and giant slugs.  We made it through 3 different rain storms on our adventure.  It was so much fun wondering around looking for the newts and just hanging out.  I wish we had more time to do this during the week, unfortunately most of our time is devoted to school or work, but the weekends are wonderful. I liked the bottom picture. We got a bit of hail before it turned to rain and the cute newt took refuge in the bend of JD's shoe.

Early Valentines

Since I have work and JD has a hard class section coming up we did some early Valentine's celebrating tonight. We went to a delicious restaurant called La Fogata. We ordered a what we thought would be more of a sampler plate to try new things and were brought out huge platters of food that resulted in a lot of left overs. Afterwards we went home and watched an IMAX movie off of Amazon Prime. We both fell asleep around 9:30 PM. What a romantic night, right? I am grateful to be with my best friend and that any time spent together is special. He is pretty great.

Tualatin Hills Nature Park

There is a 'park' by where I work that JD and I went and explored a bit today. You know you are I a cool place when at the entrance there Is a sign that you please share the walking trail with the newts. We didn't see any but JD was looking the whole time. We have actually been pretty dry here since we got back in December to the point I find myself missing the rain. It is usually a bit warmer when it is raining and it just a nice sound to fall asleep to at night. That doesn't mean we don't get any rain. We still have little showers throughout he week but also a lot of cloud breaks and sun.

The Gorge

 We went to 'The Gorge' today as locals like to call the Columbia River Gorge Area.  This is a stretch of beautiful mountains and trees that stretch along the Colombia River right outside Portland to the base of Mount Hood.  We took the Historic Columbia River Highway and got to see new waterfalls that I haven't ever been to or even knew were there.  Some of these were Shepherd's Dell, Wakeenah, Multnomah( I knew about this one, but now I know how to park right next to the lodge), Horsetail, and Bridal Veil area.  I am a fall leaves fanatic, so it was really fun to be in this area with pretty leaves and surprisingly no rain, though we got a thorough misting from the falls.  It has been raining a lot here recently and you could tell from the amount of water that was coming off the mountains.  We hiked a few of the trails, but with this new discovery there will be a lot more to come back and do when I have a map and know where everything is in the area.  We played the-drive on this surprise highway until there is a waterfall then pull over game-more time and planning should be fun in the future.

Pumpkin Carving

We had fun carving our pumpkins tonight.  Nothing quite like turning on Pandora Halloween Radio, listening to a variety of music including: Nightmare Before Christmas, Disney's Haunted Mansion ride soundtrack, Told the Witch Doctor, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Monster Mash, Thriller, among many other classic Halloween songs, and digging out pumpkin guts. I think they turned out pretty cute.  Happy week of Halloween!

Portlandia

We explored downtown Portland today and had a great time.  We started at Pioneer Square which was having an Italian Festival complete with band playing songs like "Amore"-when the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that's amore- we went to the Old Town Farmer's Market, walked along the Willamette River, saw China Town, and went to Powell's City of Books.  I love Powell's.  Today's highlights included a 1st Edition Adventures of Tom Sawyer and 1st Edition Stuart Little (that is the one I am holding in the picture).  There was also a book from 1512 with a $4,800 price tag.  I love walking through all the rooms and levels and seeing all the different books everywhere.  It is awesome.  We explored Jeld-Wen Field a little bit and enjoyed the sites and sounds of all the people, there is definately a reason that Portland's Motto is: "Keep Portland Weird", there were plenty of different things and people to watch.

Phineas & Ferb

JD has been studying super hard after long days of class.  This usually entails him coming home in time for dinner and then studying after dinner until bedtime.  I am so grateful he is dedicated to school and wanting to do well, but sometimes you just need to break up the day and relax a little bit.  This week began what has become one of my favorite parts of my day.  After we clean up dinner we sit down and watch an episode of Phineas & Ferb.  It is a good chance for JD to relax, and it is a great time for me to cuddle and watch a fantastic cartoon.  This has turned into our mini daily date night-dinner and a cartoon.  I love it!

International Rose Test Garden

It is still so strange to me that we can drive to downtown Portland in 20 minutes.  After a long week, JD and I went to the International Rose Test Gardens for a change of scenery before he spent the rest of his Saturday studying.  It was overcast and cool, a very welcome change from the 100 degree sunny weather we have had the past week.  We had fun walking around taking pictures, sniffing roses, and looking at the names of all the different roses.  They have everything from Fragrant Cloud to Betty Boop to Ketchup and Mustard.  I was a fan of the Octoberfest Roses (second ones down on the left), and that was even before I knew what they were named.  It was a quick get away and it was fantastic.

USA vs Canada Soccer

We went to the United States vs Canada game today and it was a blast! The game was great, we had super close seats (not from where my picture was taken) and we had a great view of the United States team, Hope Solo, Abby Wambach, Amy Rodriguez, Megan Rapinoe, Lauren Cheney, etc. USA won 2-1. We got a ton of sun, but it was worth the high temperatures to get a London Olympic Games preview.

Archery World Cup 2012

We went and watched part of the compound finals for the Archery World Cup today, it was VERY VERY hot, but fun watching some, now official, 2012 olympic athletes compete for the World Cup gold.  This is probably the last time that the Cup will come to Ogden, we have great memories from all three years that it has been here.

Marigold Hotel

JD & I were invited to go to a movie about India with his grandparents yesterday.  I was under the initial impression that it was going to be something of a documentary on the country.  On our way there, however, JD mentioned it was a flower hotel or something of that nature.  Having been a fan of Masterpiece Classic's Downton Abbey, I suddenly knew exactly what we were about to attend: a coming of age movie for people entering retirement.  JD and I were by far the youngest people present, and what ensued was hilarious.  Any time a character side whispered or said anything, there would be at least two people who would go, "what did they say?!?" followed by a loud translation.  It was just a funny, random experience all around. Movie was...interesting, but it was fun to see its depiction of India.

City Creek

JD & I made it down to City Creek today and just had a nice time walking around looking at the fish in the pond, the creek, the fountains, and Temple Square. I had fun finding shapes that spelled out our name, but I will have to share that another time.

Wednesdays

This summer JD and I get the same day off-Wednesday.  I am pretty excited about this because instead of stressing and rushing to the temple as soon as we get off work, we now can go in the middle of the day.  We can go to movies-like the Avengers.  We can use gift cards for dinner.  We can be out in the sunshine together.  If you can't tell, the first Wednesday this summer was pretty neat.

Twin Falls

JD and I had a wonderful Spring Break Adventure: Twin Falls Idaho. We loved attending the temple there-so pretty! We were inspired to go and see some of the waterfalls in the area. The single running fall of Twin Falls was ok, but Shoshone Falls was spectacular. We missed out on the petrified watermelon patch, another time I guess. I love road trips. I love being with my best friend, talking about whatever such as deciding whether or not hills are mountains, memories, or where we are going to school, and future decorating ideas. It was a fantastic day.

Date Nights

I got another moon, stars (planets), and temple picture! This time it is the Jordan River Temple. One of my favorite date nights is going to the temple in Salt Lake followed by Ganesh, the best Indian we have found in Utah. This evening was fun because we did sealings with JD's parents, aunt and uncle, and his great uncle was the sealer. His parents came with us to Ganesh so they were finally able to experience the deliciousness. It was a great evening!

Temple Square

It is fun having both of our finals taken care of so that we have time during the week to do things! Last night we went to Temple Square. We walked around to see the lights before doing a session at the temple. Last year we didn't come to the lights in Salt Lake, but we did go to the lights at the Los Angeles temple, it is a fun contrast between palm trees and pine trees.

Mahna Mahna

Upon arriving home JD asked me, are you going to blog about what we just saw? I answered yes.

We went to the new Muppet Movie, and I LOVED IT. It was super cute and very true to the Muppets. I loved the cameos, story line, the songs-particularly Am I a Man or a Muppet?-it was just fun. I laughed a lot as did all of the other adults that came to the movie. Seriously I think there was one kid total present the rest were older people, and we did all laugh.

Santa's Helper

I talked JD into being a Santa's Helper with me for the Santa 5K in Ogden yesterday. We were assigned to the finish line which turned out to be quite fun, though a little cold. I would take off runner's tags at the finish as JD was helping to string all of the tags from the people coming down the shute. It was a random, fun activity for the evening.