Beach Trip

Last week Ryan and I planned on going to Bend for the week. That did not happen do to the weather they were having (driving in the pass with a ton of snow is not that fun). So we decided to take an over night trip to the beach. We haven't been to an Oregon beach in over two years. Kind of sad right? I called on Monday and made reservations at a hotel and we left Tuesday morning.

We went here and walked around. It has a great nature area with lots to see. Not to mention a beautiful light house.

After our visit we headed into Newport and were going to go to the aquarium. But Ryan found Rogue and we went on the brewery tour and had a few drinks.

We drove back to Lincoln City to our hotel and they wound up upgrading us to a suite for free!! We got a killer view, fireplace, soaker tub and a king bed. It was so AWESOME!! It's fun when something good like that falls into your lap. We relaxed in the room for the night had pizza and watched a couple movies.

The next day we got up and went to the outlet mall. I surprisingly didn't buy anything but Ryan got some new shoes. We also went to Mo's for some yummy chowder and salad. We were so happy with our trip! We couldn't have asked for better weather. It only rained at night, so it was perfect.

bad blogger

It has been WAY to long since I last did a blog post. I'm sorry. I wish I had an good excuse... but I really don't. I have just been super busy and when I do have free time I haven't thought to blog. I will really try to make a better effort at it.

Wedding planning has been taking up the majority of my free time. I think that we have now got all of the big things out of the way. What is left is detail things. I have a feeling that they are going to be a pain in the butt to get done. Things like song selection, linen colors, centerpiece selection, decorations, ceremony flow...and so on. This is all important stuff, but just alot of work to complete.

I made a wedding website if you want to check it our. I still have some stuff to add to it, but from my work on this blog you can probably guess it will take awhile.

We booked our honeymoon!! We will be going to Hawaii for 10 days. We are both soooo excited for this trip. We decided to go in Late October, when the weather is starting to get bad here. Also by going then we can get more time off at work.

I hope that I can stay more up to date on this!!

Autumn

I knit a hat for me!

I am soooo in love with this hat. It is soft and warm, was super fast to knit, and the color makes me drool. This pictures can't even start to show how awesome the color is (one again sorry for the lousy pics). The hat is supposed to be more slouchy, but I must have a big head to fill it out. Next time I will add a few more rows to it.



details:

pattern -autumn by Jane Richmond
yarn - lion brand wool-ease quick 'n thick in grass
also detailed on my raverly page

My first hat!

I finished knitting my first hat! I'm very excited. I can't even begin to tell you how good it felt to knit again...or just be crafty! I have missed it so much. I have to appologize for the lousy pictures. I got a new camera for a graduation gift and it hasn't came yet. I gave my old one to my mom so I just have a point and shoot currently.

As you can tell Ryan was the lucky winner of this hat. The name of the pattern is "Turn a Square" you can see where it gets its name from the top of the hat. See the square?

Knitting a hat wasn't nearly as hard as I had expected. I did struggle with the jogless striping on it. You can kind of see in this picture how the stripes don't line up...that's where I had the trouble. You are to only slip the first stitch of the color change...not all of the color change. So that is why it looks so funny. But I was so excited to finish the hat that I couldn't rip it out and do them again. Ryan says he still loves it. I wish I would have used better yarn. I guess I will have to knit him another hat. I really liked this pattern and will use it again

details:

pattern - Turn a Square
yarn - Loops and Threads Solids
also detailed on my raverly page pattern

update!

I have been a very bad blogger. But in my defense life has been VERY crazy since my last post back in August ( by the way Karla your last blog post was 8 months ago!). So here is a quick run down of what life has been like:

• Ryan and I went on vacation with my parents. We had such a great time and go to see so many things. We traveled through 5 states saw one of the most amazing places on the earth. Ryan also discovered my obsession with collecting my national park stamps, which was highlighted by my Dad driving way to fast in the pouring down rain so I could get my stamp before the visitors center closed.
• I got very sick. Before we left on vacation I had a trip to the ER. I had been having horrible abdominal pain that would not go away. I couldn't eat with out vomiting it all right back up (sorry for that visual). The doctor in the ER said that he thought that it was a virus or something and that I would be better in a few days. So I decided to go ahead with our family trip. I got better for a little over a week. But I still couldn't eat much without having a ton of pain. Our trip came to a quick close in Spokane Washington with a big dinner that ended with me in the fetal position crying all night. We drove home the next day and I saw more and more doctors. Had tons of tests ran, lost 20lbs (on the bright side awesome for the wedding!), and ended up having surgery.
• Had surgery  on October 28th I had my gallbladder removed. While I did have a few complications after the surgery, I feel so much better now! It still blows my mind that I just have 3 tiny scars on my tummy. I also can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to eat again. before my surgery all I could hold down was smoothies and bland soup. So that 20lbs I lost will be work to keep off.
• Started my last term of school. So my last term of my nursing program was insanely hard. Not only was I sick and had to have surgery I logged in 90+ clinical hours, 100+ classroom hours, put over 2400 miles on my car driving to said classroom hours and through all of that I still passed my final with a 95%.
• I graduated from my nursing program! On December 3 I was officially done!! All my hard work for the last 5 years paid off (I can't believe that is how long ago I started my very first nursing class). I now can put all of these fancy labels behind my name. Here they are in the order that I achieved them CNA, CHT, LPN, RN, BSN, MSN.... PhD (haha not quite that far).  
• Job search....since I graduated I'm not exactly sure that my plans with legacy will play out as I hoped. So while waiting to see how the cards fall I am exploring my other options. And let me tell you that the job market is bare out there! But I have faith that it will all work out and I will end up with an awesome job that I love.
• Holidays. Halloween, this year I was way to sick to even consider carving a pumpkin. That made me so sad. I will have to carve extras next year to make up for it. Thanksgiving was fun since I could start eating by then. Now on to Christmas!

So that was the quick run down of life over the last 4 months. I will try to get some pictures up from vacation and graduation soon.

peace out!

We are off to Yellowstone!

The East Side

This last Thursday Ryan and I spent the day with our friend Julie and Steven. We had an action packed day! We started out going here

The Vista House is a special place for Julie and Steven but Ryan and I have really never gone. It was so pretty! Not to mention that it had an AMAZING view

The color on this picture is off because of the filter lens I messing around with, but I like the pink tones in the sky.

Julie and I being dorks. After we finished up here we headed to Multnomah Falls for a hike. So pretty! We were all amazed on how crowded it was for a weekday.

After our hike we went to The View Point in so I could dork out. They filmed the final scene in Twilight there (the prom). This place has a killer view. I would love to go stay there some time.

After all our looking around we went to HUB for happy hour. Ryan has been dying to go to this brewery since it opened. We just don't get out on that side of town very often. We we stopped for some beer and probably the best pretzels I have ever had. After that we went to Foster Burger for dinner. The burgers were really good, check out Julie's blog to see some pics of the guys going at the burgers. After dinner we were all so full we could barely move. It was such a fun day!