4 posts tagged “travel”

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.  

We took a trip this weekend to Southern California for a friend's 30th birthday.  It was a great reason to go down, even though I do usually try to avoid going in the summer months during the heat! 

E took off Friday and Monday so we had a little more time to be down, and it really did make for a nicer trip instead of rushing.  It let us be a little more relaxed on friday for the flying (I'm always pretty nervous, this time was no exception, but once I get through security, I get a little more relaxed)  Security wasn't too bad, in the past I seem to have been flagged as someone who looks dangerous and needing a pat-down, but today they put me through a fluffing machine.  I have no idea what it was for, but it burst air from the feet upwards for a few seconds and then I had to stand still for 15 seconds while it did something. (I searched google to see if I could link to something about it, but I can't find anything.  bizarro!)

We went out to dinner with the whole family once we got down there, at a place called Isabellas (or was it Isabelles?), a really nice italian restaurant, and that was fun.  E's mom made some delicious orange cake out of fresh oranges that we had to try at home for desert.

Then on Saturday, we watched sabbath school and some of church on TV.  That's always a nice alternative to going to the huge church. :)  Plus, I could knit while watching that way, hee hee.  E's aunt and cousins came over for lunch and we had a nice big family meal.  I always like getting to see them, they are such nice girls.

Then we headed out for Gabe's birthday party and drove a few other friends (Robert and Sarah - Bert was in our wedding and E was in theirs) with us.  They are always trying to get us to play World of Warcraft.  My general excuse on that is that that "yes, I'm sure I would like it a lot.  I think I'd like it too much and get too addicted" :P  We laugh a lot when we are with them and that's really nice.  The party was great, they came up with little rebus's for everybody was was attending and had them on poster board on the various walls for people to figure out (I wish I had taken a picture of the one for E and me, it was quite fun).  They did some other trivia quizzes too, and we had fun trying to figure out the answers.  There was a ton of greek food, but I didn't really know what much was!  It was really nice to sit and chat with friends all evening.  I'll share pictures once I get them uploaded.  Once it got late, we moved the party over to E's house - and actually had ALL of Gabe's many games (like 5 gigantic bins and 2 smaller ones).  These are the awesome kinds of games you'd find at boardgamegeek, so it was a bigger selection than our local game store has!  The guys stayed up most of the night playing, I only made it to like 2:30 :)

The next morning, the games were all still there and so I did some looking for ones I might want to own (I'll have to do a geeky post about games sometime later) and played some with E and Craig before brunch... and most everybody showed up again for the day/evening of playing and visiting and even working on the Portland puzzle we got E's dad for father's day.  We hung out and ate together again (E's mom is so cool, letting everyone hang out at the house and then feeding us all too!).

Then Monday morning, we got up and ready to go and played a little more with Craig while waiting.  We made it to the airport in plenty of time (phew! we've missed our flight before, but traffic wasn't bad this time).  We finally decided to get some food at Carl's Jr/Green Burrito so that they we wouldn't stuff ourselves before the flight and could sit down to dinner when we got home.  When we got back down to our end of the terminal (still like 1 1/2 hours until take off time), they informed us that our flight was grounded due to communication errors in Portland still (later we heard there was a power outage at the Portland airport that caused this) and we'd have to wait for several extra hours.  So almost 3 hours late, we left Ontario.  Ugh, we've had the worst luck at this airport, definitely spent too much time waiting around.  But I had knitting, we played Mario minigames on DS, E read, we walked through all the little shops (there's like 4 in this terminal, not *too* exciting).  They gave us $6 vouchers because we had to wait and we went and picked out a fun selection of candy and nuts and magazines and then the lady said that they were only for food.  Well doh, it said "magazine concessions", that's retarded.   So we went and got danishes and muffins we didn't really need (the blueberry muffin is on the counter here, all squished in a funny shape from being in my bag!)

But we made it back on the ground, found our car in the lot, and went home.  And rested and watched some TV and went to bed.  It was a good trip, and even though I'll do more resting for a few days to make up for the late nights and walking, it was super, and we have great memories!

So as it is probably obvious by our moblog pictures, we've made it safely past the worse of our trip.  And then we also made it where we were going. :)

The last two days kind of are merging together and this is my first change typing with something other than my phone :)  We drove and drove and drove some more, and it was really tiring.  In fact, at about 8PM this evening, we were sitting playing cards and I just couldn't concentrate any more and had to come upstairs to rest!

The biggest fun was going through Southern Oregon and finding that chains were required over the Siskiyou Pass.  It took us 2 1/2 to 3 hours to get from where they had the sign and people started slowing down to where the snow was over.  We had to actually stop and buy chains at a gas station, and E waited till we were really near the checkpoint so we didn't have to drive very far with them and put them on.  And it seemed so silly because there was no snow... but we finally did hit it, and we were glad we had chains.  We are worried we'll have to do the same on the way home (note to self: link to travel conditions).

There was SO much rain.  I talked to my dad yesterday and he said the same about the Seattle area (he was in Tacoma).  It was pouring SO VERY HARD for at least 3/4 of our day yesterday, I'd guess.  In fact, it was raining so hard, I made up a new word: rainblur.  Rainblur is when so much water is dumping on your windshield that everything is just a blur, including signs, and you feel like you are going blind because everything is blurred.  Heh, when I was thinking about that word last night, I thought "I should tell Mark this one for neologasm" :D  maybe when I get back :)

So anyhow, with the rain and the many hours near the pass, we got behind.  We wanted to be more than half way here before we stopped, so even though we were tired (read: I was falling asleep, E was fine), we pushed on.  and on, and on, and when we got where we thought we'd stop, we went further because we couldn't find easy access hotels until several exits later (too big of a city where were thought we'd stop in the first place, just ritzy hotels, not "quick-traveler-stop-off" kiind of motels).  Seriously, we should have gotten a motel that charged by the hour for how few hours we were there :P  okya, i'm exaggerating a little. :)

Today's drive didn't have nearly as much rain, and we actually got to listen to our audiobook, and I got to knit.  Oh, there's a moblog post I haven't sent, just remembered! (see, i'm tired, i'm just talking to myself now!)

The plan for tomorrow is getting to eat breakfast here and then going on a much shorter drive for the "alone-time" portion of our trip, which should include shopping and resting.  woo! 

More moblogging to follow as we travel along!

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!