Life happenings...

Thursday Stuart and I took the plunge and became adults. We got mobile phones. Yep. We've been married over 5 years and only had a cell phone for about a year and a half through Stuart's parents family plan but we were removed from that and haven't had phones since then. So if anyone wants my number let me know but don't expect to talk to me on the phone we don't have many minutes but we do have unlimited texting.

Friday I was in the mood for a photo shoot. I decided on a Twenties theme and enlisted Megan, Danielle and Beth to model for me - a mother and daughter shoot. It was a fast shoot and the pictures turned out pretty dang good, if I do say so myself. See some here.

On Saturday Stuart's parents took us to Leavenworth seeing as it's the last Saturday we had to do anything all together before the girls head back to Rexburg. I'd never been before so it was a treat. We stopped at Deception Falls on the way there.

When we got to Leavenworth I felt like I was in Shrek. Seriously. Look at the place!

And to make things even more Shrek-ish...

We went to a German/Bavarian restaurant for lunch. I had the knackwurst on a kaiser roll with sauerkraut and spicy mustard.

It took me a fair while to get through the sausage because of how tough the skin was. My teeth are now very sharp. Some people had schnitzel. Stuart liked his enough but not $20 enough and also didn't appreciate they gratuity being added in. I have to admit I'm still having trouble with leaving tips for restaurant servers so to have it forced on me... yeah, I guess I shouldn't have stacked the plates for them... eeer... I tip my hairdresser because she went to school to - whatever, there's the schnitzel eater:

After lunch we went for a dawdle down the street and came across the famous Hat Shop and took it as an opportunity to share nits.

Stuart is a McGyver fan

It was a nice little day trip.

This week I NEED to find us somewhere to live. The girls leave this weekend for school and then it'll be our turn to get packed up and moved. I'm having a hard time finding somewhere - especially because the internet keeps switching off every 10 minutes. It's driving me mad! Do you know anyone who's gone to Life West Chiropractic College? Or maybe people living in the Hayward area? Help me out and pass my email address on to them - sugar.grenade(at)gmail.com I need to know what places to avoid and such.

Also, Silly Girls we're having the last photo shoot of summer on Wednesday at 6pm. All Silly Girls are welcome. Here's the deets. You can also find us on facebook. Two Silly Girls photography.

PS. all the pictures on this post were deleted by me before I put them on the computer but thanks to Stuart and his magic skills he saved them! Somehow... Thanks, Stuee :) You are the best.

"even if we come home empty handed we'll still have our stories of battle scars, pirate ships and wounded hearts..."

Day two of the trip was mostly traveling. We got up and packed up and got on the road. We stopped at Cape Perpetua. Crashing waves and blow holes were very much present.

After that we stopped at some stinky beach because we wanted to continue the sea side frolicking but it was too cold... and stinky.

Then we stopped at the Sealion Caves and saw nothing. It was really misty that day. We didn't even hear any sealions.

We made it to Grants Pass before the grandparents even got home from the fair. The rest of the week was spent mostly lounging, chilling, visiting and eating fresh vegetables from grandpa's garden. It was blissful for the most part.

Now we're home and all of a sudden freaking out about how we're going to afford Chiropractic School. Um yeah. It's not like we can cut anything more out of our budget - we don't have health insurance, we don't have cell phones, we don't have a credit card, I don't have a drivers license which means we don't pay for car insurance for me and I don't use petrol, we don't have kids or pets, we don't smoke or drink or are addicted to any drugs... Yikes.

PS. There are some more edited pics from our trip here.

"So long Astoria, I found a map to hidden treasure..."

We're back but not for long it would seem. Let me start at the beginning (it's a very good place to start.)...

Last Monday Stuart and I decided to take off on our Oregon trip early. His grandparents live down there and so the whole family was going to be leaving on Thursday. We decided since we had nothing else to do and since we deserved it we'd take off early and take our time getting there. Stuart was looking for somewhere for us to camp on the way down when he found a little cabin by the sea. Perfect. It turned out to be the last one the campsite had for that night. It was meant to be.

So Tuesday at 6am we took off with Megan. This is what she looked like...

Our first stop was Astoria. We did a little Goonies tour of the town. It was the best even though JaneJane (our GPS) tried to have us turn straight of a bridge to get to the street below. She was really sassy this trip, I'll tell you what! The first stop in Astoria was at the harbour where we had a picnic and stretched and gazed at the bridge and gulped down a ton of salty sea air - my fave.

After our picnic we went to find Mikey's house - that's when JaneJane tried to kill us. We found it though and we were still alive.

And then we went here:

And saw this - Mikey's dad's museum:

Then we went to Cannon Beach. You might recognise this:
It was a really nice sunny day to be at the beach. We frolicked for a short time then took off again and stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory where we filled up on cheese curds and ice cream.

Then we hit the road again.

We got to our cabin at around 5pm and were very excited. Stuee got the fire going and we roasted hot dogs for dinner then when it got dark Megan treated us to some of the worst ghost stories I've ever heard.

We all went to bed and then got up and left the site by 10am and made our way down to Grants Pass but not before stopping at a couple more places. Those pictures will have to wait though because I need to go to bed.

As we were leaving Astoria and singing in the car we got a phone call letting us know that Stuart's been accepted to school down in Hayward, CA. YAAAY! School starts in about 5 weeks and I need to find us somewhere to live. I have my eye on this place just now. How likely does that seem? I have my fingers crossed.

The itch:

Mmm yes, I have the itch - not *that* itch, gross! But the adventure itch. I've had it for a little while but have had it under control due to being extremely patient. Summer is almost over and I don't have much to show for it. It's sad. I've scored a lot of things off my list but feel like I did those things only so I'd feel like I did something instead of doing them to have fun. They weren't done in the spirit of The Summer List.

Stuart had his phone interview with Life West Chiropractic school on Thursday. It sounded like it went well. We're really hoping he'll be accepted for the end of next month so we can move down there and get started - if not then we'll be going done in December and he'll need to find a job here for those three months.

Today Stuart decided that we should start our summer holiday early - he's had the itch too and goodness knows he deserves a good holiday. You all know how I feel about Stuart. He works really hard. We're going to head down to Oregon on Tuesday morning. We have some places picked out that we'll stop at along the way. We're taking a more Stronach approach to this trip and will be picniking, camping and taking things at a leisurely rate and go to places neither of us have ever been before. Hopefully the trip will inspire and rejuvinate me. I miss blogging every day... We'll see. I will have lots of pictures to post I'm sure of that.

I've lost my spice again. Dang it.

Stuff I dig and will someday own:

Stuart arranged for his phone interview with the school to happen this week hopefully. We're getting closer to having our own home. Weeeee!
I've been compiling a wishlist on Amazon for when I have money to buy things for our new home and have been getting pretty excited - especially since seeing Megan's dishes she got yesterday from Ikea. I look forward to choosing out my own plates! Who knew that'd be so exciting? I can hardly wait! I want to paint walls - and maybe get back into actually painting like on canvas someday. Oooh. Yes. I like that idea. Space to paint will be very welcome.

One day I'll have my own tea set.

Sweet little butterfly accents.

Green kitchen

Kurt Halsey artwork (my fave.)

Amy Rice artwork

Delicious Sofette from Pottery Barn

Settee from Pottery Barn.

In other news, Megan and a few others were laid off from Jansport yesterday. That means Stuart's job is coming to an end too. I'm thinking he might be done by the end of this week. That means no Jansport income but we'll have a bit of time to spend together and maybe I can pick up a few more photography gigs to make some money.

I'm sad that I'm looking forward to summer being over. I'll miss it soon enough but we're ready for a change and to get on with things.

We're hoping/praying that this summer will mark the end of our patheticness. That we'll be able to live on our own for more than 6 months at a time and maybe start a family. So much to look forward to!

Gasworks Park: Unedited

This is Gasworks Park in Seattle. I'll be doing my second official photo shoot here on Wednesday afternoon. I'm a smidgen nervous so Stuart, who had the day off today and I went on a quick trip down there to scope out the area.
We fell in love with it pretty quickly - probably in the free car park actually. We love free parking! Then the first thing inside the park is this big concrete tunnel thingy with the best shadows and lines. Love love.
Giant rusty red tubey things everywhere.
Blue sky.
Stuart needs a hair cut.

There is also a kind of lofted area with wooden floors and bird poo all over the place.

I don't know what all this stuff is but it's cool. This is the perfect place for photo shoots I think.

There's also a little sort of play area and picnic area too.
Good spots for jumping off of.
And the space needle in the background.

The park has a really nice view of the city and also a lovely cool breeze coming off the water.

This is how I feel about Seattle:
I was loving the rusty red of the structure against the bright blue sky.

Yes. Gasworks Park, you will do very nicely. Thank you.

Edit: There's a couple edits here.