5 posts tagged “portland”

I woke up the first day of the year, really wanting to write a recap of my year.  I skimmed back through the first months of last year because I thought I would have done something in a small way then, and I didn't.  So next year, I'll have this to look back on and see where I've grown.  Anyhow, I fought with myself on how to present it.  I fought with myself to sit down and actual type over the course of a few days it so that I had this remembrance to look back on.  And then I fought with myself on how to end it because there's so much to it, and so much more in my life I could be introspective about...

The biggest things that I am proud and/or excited about of this year are my reading, cooking, listening (music/podcasts), knitting, gaming, and watching.  So much that I wrote whole posts on them.  Some of the other things that I did this year were also very fun or important to me, but they weren't worth a whole post!

I blogged this year.  

After knit

This was done mostly here on Vox.  Sometimes, my blogging just took the form of updating my media lists for books and movies, because I just didn't have the time or energy to write real posts.  I also added some delicious links to my main blog (automatically), got a facebook account to track friends there, and did private posts on my livejournal.  

I also moblogged this year, continuing to carry my camera phone with me everywhere and taking random pictures to remind me of things we did.  Even though a lot of these turn into self-portraits, I don't mind.

I took pictures with both my phone for easy moblogging and my camera.  My camera photos are mostly of family events or special things, and many of these are not in Vox yet, just iPhoto.  But there are a lot of knitting photos in that pile, as well.  Those, I used the FlickrExport to send to my Flickr account (which I've by now caught up with the limitations of a free account) so I could use them both on Ravelry and pull them into Vox as needed.

I dealt with my health this year. 

I made conscious decisions to do things to reduce my stress level and help my CFIDS/Fibromyalgia.  Even though this was one of the worst years in the last 5 years for my health, I feel slightly better at the end of the year.  I also made a set of visits to the dentist to have fillings done, even though it's still very scary to me.

I traveled this year.

Ca trip palms

We started out the year in California on our trip last Christmas and so we had a long drive for that trip.  Then in June, I went to San Francisco for work.  Also in June, we visited the beach with the whole Locatis family.  In July, we flew down to California for a friend's birthday and had a wonderful time with friends and family.

We also did exploring local places.  We spent a bit more time learning what was here in Vancouver that we hadn't seen, and went to the Farmers Market many times over the course of the late spring-early autumn, which is also a nice chance to walk around Esther Short Park.  We visited new restaurants in the area, which is very adverturesome of me because I  usually stick with the same things I know.  And we went to the fancy theater, Cinetopia, several times as well.  Some of this, I got a chance to Yelp about, and other things I just read reviews before visiting to see what other people thought.

We went down to our favorite outdoor mall, Bridgeport Plaza several times, and once down to the Woodburn Outlet mall.  At least one time to Washington Square in Beaverton, as well.  We enjoy window shopping the most out of going to these places, and usually my reasoning for going has to do with the food that's nearby.

We even ventured into Portland more than we have in the past!  We visited the Pearl district a number of times to go to PF Changs and surrounding area including Powells, and made it to the Saturday Market further down from there.  We made it to an outdoor art show at one point, too.  And multiple trips to Pioneer Place were nice for going to the closest Apple store and more.

I spent time with family this year.  

We participated and helped with Megan's wedding in February, and that was a big wonderful event.  Our trip to the beach with everyone on the Locatis family side was a good chance for us to relax together.  We spend many weekends getting together through the year, with dad or one of us (usually dad) cooking for the whole group.  We visited with E's family after the new year, during several trips when they came up to visit at the beginning of the year, and then when we went down in July.  One of the fun things this year has been to watch Leah and baby Leonard (my niece and nephew) grow, and do fun things for them.  We've also had a lot of fun playing games together throughout the year with both sides of the family.

I met up with friends this year.

I have a really hard time reconnecting with people from my past.  This year, I took time to meet up with a friend from college, and even more amazingly, a friend from high school.  Even though I was super nervous, both meetings went so much better than my nightmares lead me to believe they would.  It makes me think I'm not as awful with people as I think, and maybe I'm starting to heal from past situations a little too.

But mostly, I've just learned how to be Kristine.  That's always a challenge, to be myself.  And this year, I grew more comfortable in that, even though it was another year where I had to say that I was in the 30-40 age range on questionaires.  I embrace my ISTJ-ness and do things consistent rather than trying to be something I'm not.

Thanks for bearing with me through this series of posts, even as the days of the month moved faster than my typing.  

The last two weekends, we've been out and about...

Weekend before last, we decided to go down to Portland's Saturday Market because we'd never been before.  We enjoy the farmer's market in Vancouver a lot, and figured this would be a bigger and more interesting one.  We figured out where it was and were amazed at the crowds of people.  It actually is considerably different than Vancouver's - the V one is heavily based on fresh fruits and vegetables, with some homemade things (crafts/woodwork/gifts/homemade foods) and a food court of sorts.  P's is very based on booths of stuff, a lot of homemade things and things that seemed a little overpriced in places.  No fruits and veges at all.  There were a lot of ethnic booths, and clothes, and quite a lot of jewelry. The booths went on and on, we thought we'd made it through them, and then there was another section, and across the street, and another one, and everywhere!  Pretty phenomenal.  With that many people gathered around, it *was* hard to see though. 

We were so close to Pioneer Place that we headed over to the mall to see what movies were playing.  At least 2 things were out I wanted to see: Transformers and Die Hard.  Die Hard wasn't playing, but we were within 20 mins of Transformers (which is not on amazon yet to put in this post as a movie, sigh) at a matinee time, so that was perfect. Even though I knew nothing barely about them from my childhood, it was a super movie.  We were really surprised that the theater was pack a couple weeks after opening).

We started to walk through the mall, but nothing was super enticing to look at, so we headed over to Macaroni Grill.  We had a delicious meal, wow my dinner was so good I can still taste it, so that was perfect.

On Sunday, we went and hung out with my siblings at Lisa and Jon's house.  We had a nice time, and got to sit and play a great game of Bohnanza with Jon, I've never had that much fun with that game before!  3 players really is fun.

----

Then this weekend that just happened, we didn't know what was going on with the family and mom wasn't home, so we did our own thing.  Some books were due back at the library, and I'd been wanting to look at general craft books rather than just looking things up online, so we went to the BIG library.  Then I wanted to get some fresh fruits and veggies at the farmer's market (Vancouver), so we went to see what was there.  There were a TON of people because of the Hawaiian festival in the park.  And not really any good fruits/veges that I wanted to pick up, so we just walked around for a bit and then left.  Because we were downtown, we headed to Thai Orchid for lunch, I love the lemongrass chicken with peanut sauce.  During dinner, we started talking about upcoming birthdays, and then drove around looking for a gift afterwards.  Oh, and stopped at Z Games, where they had some nice new games (couple of Rio Grande, the publishers of many of the ones we own) we hadn't heard of (it's fun to look, we didn't buy anything).  When we got home, we played some board games  (I won both, I think!) and then watched the next Netflix disk (I need to update my movie sidebar with those).

Yesterday, we were going to just stay in, but decided to continue looking for a gift idea (no luck, but at least we know where it *isn't* :P) and that took us down to Clackamas to eat at Claim Jumpers.  I varied from my norm (Tillamook Cheeseburger is divine) and got a Citrus Chicken Salad, and it was okay, but not something worth driving down there for.  We did the mall walk, and didn't find what we were looking for, but it's good exercise (over a mile) and it's really fun to see the progress on the remodel they are doing.

----

Overall, we've really had some great together time lately, and these kind of activities get us talking and exercising instead of staying in all the time.  My legs continue to be sore, so we went slow everywhere.  I keep telling myself that the more walking I do, the better they will be, but it doesn't work that way every time!  So we walk slow and I take chances to stretch my ankles when we stop for a minute and sit down  when there's a seat. :)  I really love my husband, it's great to have someone who doesn't mind just doing this kind of stuff together.

The biggest best buy i've ever seen. Huge inside just opened by the place where ikea will open soon.

Best buy

When you go out to eat, how do you pick where to go?
Submitted by Kristine.

This is always a tough one.  E and I tend to go out once or twice a week, and so we sometimes have a harder time picking than others.  I was trying to think of somewhere to eat when I submitted the question idea :D

Unless I'm craving something... then it's easy ;)  Like the other day, I wanted a goldfinger sundae so bad I could taste the bananas.  That made it very clear that I had to go to Boppin' Bo's.

Other times, it's based on other things we want to do while we are out - if we are headed to the big library, eating downtown makes sense.  If we are headed to grocery shop, there's fast food near Safeway.

Sometimes, it's related to an event.  I'm very much for tradition, and so if I realize I went somewhere on a specific day the previous year, I just might want to go there again just for the sake of keeping the same patterns :)

Our favorite standby is always Red Robin - we go there a couple times a month probably.  It's right in front of the mall (and we live behind the mall), so it's convenient.  Olive Garden is equally close, but it tends to be harder to get in.  E always is suggesting Mexican food (Azteca is on the same corner) but I'm just not a big fan very often.  Old Spaghetti Factory is a little further, but worth the drive every time.

We've also been trying to expand our horizons and go to some new places.  Just recently, we found a second Thai restaurant downtown Vancouver that was really good (Thai Orchid is our normal one, the new one we tried is Tiger's Garden).  And in the last year, we've ventured to downtown Portland after finding that not only P.F.Changs is down in the Pearl district, but Macaroni Grill is down by Pioneer Place (before, we'd been going to Tualatin to our favorite outdoor mall for either of those).

Another way to expand our horizons has been to read the weekend section of the newspaper, where they spotlight restaurants.  We've seen some interesting stuff this way, and look forward to trying some of these, although we haven't been to many yet.  I've also browsed through CHOWHOUND's boards for the pacific NW on occasion, which gives some interesting ideas and reasons.

And I've been writing this post off and on all day, and I think I could write a book about my food dining behaviors, truly.  So I'll cut it off here before I get carried away!!!

If someone was visiting your town for the first time, what would be the one place you'd tell them they just had to go see

That's a very good question. There is SO much gorgeousness in our area that it's hard to pick just one. Plus, we've done this kind of thing lots - our family loves to show off our area to out of towners, and we were so amazed for the first 5-10 years we lived here (I was 10 when we moved to WA) that we went and did these touristy things over and over and over.

If it's the right time of year (like now), I'd probably pick the Rose Gardens. They are amazingly beautiful, and there's a perfect view of Mt. Hood.

For people that I know well, I tend to enjoy taking people down the gorge to the Bonneville Dam, where they have a fish viewing room, and you can walk on the generators. It's a cool place to spend an afternoon walking and playing, and it's a beautiful drive there. If someone was really interested in hiking, they could stop a mile before it and go up Beacon Rock. And if they were wanting more, they could go around the gorge loop: go over the beautiful Bridge of the Gods another mile after the dam, then get yummy fries and ice cream at Cascade Locks and then see Multnomah falls and Crown Point on the other side.

If we had a little longer, and people hadn't been to the coast, Lincoln City is an amazing place to go to because it's right on the beach and oregon beaches are so different from say California. ;)

But really, the thing I tend to bring people from out of town to is restaurants. We have a lot of favorites, and even though they aren't all unique to our area, it's a fun time to sit together and laugh and eat. Old Spaghetti Factory is a good example of a restaurant that isn't just local, but a very good place to take out of towners because we have the very first one here in Portland (the purple roof one!)

I didn't do a very good job at saying "one place" did I? ;)

I had a post a year or so ago on my main blog with links to most of these place and it worked out well for enhancing this one heh!