Hello August!

Well it is adios to to July and hello to August!! July has proved to be a great month, and I am hopefully that August will be just as good if not better. Kickball is wrapping up only 2 more games after tonight, and I am only 2 weeks away from leaving on my trip to Northern Europe. This trip is highly anticipated and should prove to be interesting. I am lucky enough to be going with my family, which is really my first trip traveling with family outside of immediate family members, should be fun!! I am still hoping to get up to the zoo before I leave for my trip but we will see if that works out. I can't believe after almost 18 months of talking about this trip and things going back and forth, in about 14 days we will be descending upon the great city of London, and then we are headed out from there!!!

I stopped at the local farmers market yesterday and bought more fruit than any one person probably ever should. I do plan on eating all the great stuff I got, but I may end up needing to freeze some of the blueberries. So needless to say I am on a bit of a fruit frenzy right now (see picture in previous post) and I just can't believe how good they all taste!! It makes me sad to think that in a couple weeks it will all be gone, and I will have to wait another year before the summer fruit season is upon us.

Thanks to all those who made July a great month, I am looking forward to August!!!

Yummy

As I sit here dining on my fresh locally grown giant blackberries, and blueberries I can't help but fall in love with the Oregon summer all over again!! We have the BEST berries in the world here, and I get to enjoy them all!!!!!!

The Dark Knight

Oh man, I just had to jump on the blogger this morning and tell everyone how awesome my night was last night. I had my kickball game last night, we lost, but I made one and a half awesome catches!!! We stuck around for the second game to watch and support our teammates who were umping the second game. So we do our usual thing after the game, drinks, food, and fun. But last night was different because everyone was talking about going and seeing The Dark Knight at the 12:15 showing and the smaller local theater. My Brother and I being ever the skeptical optimists decided to go at 11:30 not really believing that there would be a theater in the world that didn't have a line around it and sold out for this movie on opening night. We were pleasantly surprised and very wrong!!! Not only did we get in to an almost empty theater when we arrived at 11:30 but I got in for, shall we say, less than market value!!! So I rolled in to bed this morning at 4:00am and was actually on time to work at 8:30, not to shabby!!!

So about the movie, amazing. The movie totally lives up to the hype, and all I can say about Heath Ledgers performance of the Joker is that you will NOT be disappointed, it was great, a bit long when you are in an old theater with no A/C but it was GREAT and well worth the complete exhaustion and emotion roller coaster I am destined to be on from lack of sleep!!! Thank you to all those guys that talked me into staying in Portland and checking out the movie, it will go down as one of those nights that reminds me to go with the flow and live it up!!!!

Kick Ball!!!

Oh man I have joined a kickball league in Portland and it is 100% awesomeness!!! It includes a little bit of athletic ability, lots of teamwork and camaraderie, and even more BEER!!! We can even drink ON the field!!! So far we have a 2-2 record which for an almost entirely rookie team (with exception to our capitan) is not to shabby!!! If you are ever in Portland on a Thursday come check us out! This Saturday is our mid-season mixer, it is going to be awesome.....




I have also enclosed some pics from our outings at the bar!!!

It is so much fun even the pregnant girls get down!!!

The team (part of it atleast) after our first game, by this time we didn't care that we lost!!

Fruits & Veggies vs. Meat & Pies

Well as some of you may already know I have decided to do a 3 day strict fruit and veggie detox. After three days I can start implementing fish, brown rice, and oatmeal. After that I can start introducing things as I want them. I just felt that my diet wasn't what it should be and it was time to change things up and clean things out. So currently I am in day two!!! I am experiencing a few head aches which my Doctor warned me about, but also a lot of food cravings!!! Mostly I am craving sushi probably because I know I am going to go hit that up as soon as I can eat fish!!! But I was looking at my netflix movie list and read about a movie that had Kevin Bacon in it, so I started craving bacon, this morning I woke up craving a big hunk of cheese!! Don't get me wrong I am enjoying the fruits & veggies (eating a delicious pear right now) but they are not what I would consider a meal. For dinner last night I had a plum, and a bowl of edemame, and for dessert was watermelon, a delicious meal and thanks to the nalgene of water I drank with it I was full. I am hoping that the cravings will start to subside once I can eat more proteins and whole wheats. So I just have to remind myself, only one more day to go!!!

SATC

Well finally it is almost May 30th and the Sex and The City movie opens!! My sister-in-law and I have made plans to watch the movie in the afternoon on Friday and then head over to this great place in Portland to get foot massages, then it is off to dinner!!! What a great plan huh!!! I love Sex and The City, I only watched it on DVD this past year but it was wonderful. I can't wait to see what the movie has in store for us!!!!

Where has the time gone?

Well I have taken the GRE and I have that under my belt now so when I take it again I know more what to expect. I have found a couple of graduate programs that I am interested in, but I am also looking at a couple different options right now. It seems like I haven't even had a second to breath over the past six weeks, but now as I sit to write I can't think of a thing. I am beginning to think of my travel plans for '09. I am excited for the possibilities of having the time and being able to visit my friends and family all over the US and still be able to go on at least one international trip. Cairo is on my list this upcoming year, as well as Ohio, and finally my Mom and I are going to take that trip to Savannah, Georgia that we have been talking about for a couple years. I have one trip left this year, and it takes place in Northern Europe in August. I am looking forward to this trip with a combination of hesitation and excitement, believe me it is a long story.

It seems like just last month I was visiting Mckenzie in South Africa and waking up each morning making our French press coffee, and eating our GIANT bowls of cereal while trading Zoe back and forth. When I arrived there I thought 3 weeks was so long, however by the end, I felt like I had just started to get used to life there. I knew it would be at least 4 months before I saw them again, now she could be out here as early as next month! Time just seems to fly by lately. My boss (also my mom) took 6 weeks off of work which now seems like yesterday, but she is back at work today. Someone recently told me "You can do anything for two years". What I don't think that person had any idea of was how seriously I am considering joining the Peace Corp. The length of service just happens to be two years!! It is true though, think of how many of us never thought high school would end and by your senior year you were wondering where the time went. That is what happened to me, but the time only seemed to speed up in college. At the beginning of the year we would be thinking how long this year would be, and by the end we would all be surprised at how we had accomplished everything we set out to do and so much more than we ever thought possible.

Considering how quickly time flies by I have been thinking of different adventures and challenges I want to face and over come in the upcoming months, and years. First on the list I really want to climb a mountain. While I have many other ideas and goals for myself I am starting with this one!!!! So hopefully this August I will be on the South Sister in Oregon, and have my first mountain under my belt.

Time really does fly by, and remember to savor the choices that you make, and for goodness sakes sometimes you just have to JUMP!!!!!!!!!!!