Portland Trip: Part 1

When you have two friends' birthdays in one week, one of those turning 21, and they have friends from Eugene and Portland with birthdays as well, a road trip is in order. Casey, Candace, Drew, and I left Medford Friday afternoon with Eugene in sight. We got a motel room near downtown so that us girls could just walk back from the bars that we ran into while the boys were at some friends. 2 am rolled around and we all decided on sleep...we got little, but we tried.

Candace and I

Leaving Eugene, we headed for Beaverton to stay with another friend. Naturally we had to stop at Woodburn. Us girls were itching for some city shopping, and we put small dents into our bank accounts at our first location. Oh joy. But as tempting as it was, I DID resist the urge to buy something from Coach...but a few things were pretty.

Dropping off our bags, we then turned ourselves loose to look for dinner. Chevy's it was, with some Mexi food, a couple starter drinks, and some silly pictures indeed.

Chevy's

Casey, Drew, Candace

Me, Casey, Drew

He stole the camera...

After dinner we dropped Candace off with some of her friends, agreeing to meet up again later to go out. To entertain ourselves, the boys and myself drove around towards downtown to attempt to get pictures for me. Stopping in at the Rose Garden to use the restrooms led to a fun little discovery: a hockey game between the Portland Winterhawks and the Kelowna Rockets. Naturally, the three of us find a hockey game on accident. Of course, we went. It was much bigger than we were used to, and we felt proud to know a lot of the rules and things that took place.

After the game we met back up with the other group at a place called Holocene. From here, the bar hopping and running around downtown began. I had 0 drinks. Zero. None. I played Mommy like nobody's business. I carried shoes, held cards, checked phones, and monitored the walking capabilities of other folks that were unable to do so themselves. Best part of the night: seeing the boys' faces when the only place left with no cover charge was a gay bar. Talk about shock and terror. We left and headed back to Candace's friends house to play card games and try again to catch some well deserved zzzzzzs.

From here, I fell asleep out of exhaustion and the other kept playing for another half hour or so until sprawling out on the bed and floor.

Time to Rebuild

There are times in your life when you have to learn to let go. It is never easy. Everybody you are close to your whole life will tell you that it won't be. But, even though it is not easy, friends can help to buffer the damage.

I am so thankful to have been given the friends I have come close to these past few weeks. From softball games, to bowling nights, and just everyday playful joking, they make me smile.

Savannah and Me

Jeff and Shawn

Brady, Savannah, and Ulrika

The past month or so, a group of Best Buy employees has started ganging up and going bowling after work. Two of the three attempts have been pretty successful, with turnouts of around 10-15 people. Needless to say, three lanes of crazy, hyper, silly, and yes, immature, co-workers can actually be a lot of fun. These people have kept me going. I look forward to these nights more than I have anything for a long time.

I growl, Casey smiles

Me and Ulrika

Nick, Alex, Jeff, and Brady rockin' the air guitar

As well as being decent bowlers (for the most part), some of the group think they are rockers. Rock Band competition anyone?

Drew

Casey and Drew, the boys who get me through

Group photo!

Obviously there are some of us missing to complete the whole Best Buy extravaganza, but the ones who do show up are always a blast. It's in my blood to organize these kinds of get togethers thanks to my family, but since the fam is so far away, these guys are really good fill ins. Best Buy Bowling will soon be a standing tradition within our store :)

Catching Up

A half a year later and a lot has changed. Needless to say, I have fallen behind. I am now an SOU Alumni, class of 2011. The ceremony wasn't quite as I had always imagined it. I was in the front row with some of the most amazing people I've ever met, next to one of the best friends God could have given me, and the storm cloud above us just didn't want to hold out. After a couple hours in the semi-chilly weather and hearing hundreds of names of people I had never heard of, it was over.

A handful of the Anthropology grads...Brooke, Erinn, myself, Kevin, Randi, Emma.

Can you say 'happy'?

Don't get too excited, they're empty.

Since graduation I haven't done a whole lot except work to pay off my bill. I'm an official graduate minus the degree while I owe the school, boo. Much has happened within myself, changing who I am and who I want to be. I have started looking into Biblical Archaeology, with a somewhat refined goal of going to Israel to study. Any archaeology job would be great, but I feel a pull towards showing what the Lord has done in our past and showing people His amazing works.

I am in the process of planning a huge trip to Universal Studios in Orlando with some friends from work. If we can get the group together that wants to go, we will be going later this fall, gone for 5 days, romping around 2 parks, visiting Hard Rock, maybe jumping in the ocean, and then coming back for the holiday season. I need a vacation.

A very brief session trying to cover half a year of my crazy life, but hopefully I can start keeping up with more fun events!

College Graduate

I have 2 hours before my last Undergraduate final. I'm sitting here eating Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, watching The Bone Collector, checking my Facebook, and texting a very special person...obviously my body hasn't processed the fact that I'm supposed to be cramming and focusing on this last test.

Two days ago I shared a fun morning with all of my Anthropology major friends, we participated in a 'ritual' for our Capstone final with all 4 of our department professors and ate some awesome food while visiting about whatever came to mind. I can't help but feel so thankful to have shared the past year and a half with these people. We have all shared so much of ourselves and learned so much about each other, and I hope that each and every one of them is successful in whatever they do. SOU seemed like an odd choice for me, but now I realize that it was probably the best thing I have chosen to do.

I have lost friends along the way for reasons that I can never change, but in losing them I found others. Erinn has been one of the best friends I could have while travelling on this crazy journey, and I am so very happy to have shared the stress and joy this senior year gave us. Working at Best Buy was initially a choice made to bring in a check and to learn some things on the way...little did I know that my job there would lead to a whole slew of new friends. They have supported me through my bad days even when they had no idea why I was upset, hugs all around. I'm excited to be done, but nervous because school is all I have ever known, so finishing this and starting life seems like a doorway that I can't yet see all the way through yet, but it is cracked ever so slightly.

Presentations, Awards, and Graduation

Oh my gosh, I'm a bit behind...so after the move I've determined that I have waaay too many books, which sucks, but I love them all still. I moved my entire life into a tiny trailer that is now jam packed with all of my special memories and belongings, many movies and tons of clothes, and it is going to be my home for a long time.

Other than the move I've been super busy with school and my blooming persona as an archaeologist. I recently (April 15-16) spoke at the State of Jefferson conference in Arcata, California about a student's perspective on professional archaeology, so all of the work that I have done while at Britt, and it was an amazing trip. Only a handfull of us from SOULA went, and it was a perfect sized group to keep us all close and yet allow us to converse with archaeologists from other locations and get our names out there. The presentation was fantastic and even though I was super nervous, it felt amazing to speak to a group of people who were genuinely interested in what I had been doing. While this was a professional conference trip, the three of us students did go out of the town and bonded as college kids do...had a couple beers, mingled with the locals, and called it a night by like 11pm...yep, I'm a sissy.

This spring I will be giving another presentation, this one for graduation. It will include more work from Britt regarding a local family and some of their pottery that we have been finding, and while it's still intimidating, it will be to a much more relaxed group so I should be okay (I hope).

Lastly in line for my archaeology doings this term, I will be receiving the AAUW Outstanding Woman in Archaeology award at SOU, so that's pretty cool. I have no idea how that all worked out, but I'm pretty sure it was limited selection seeing as I'm the only female archaeologist graduating this spring!! Cheeeaaaater!! But I'll still take it.

So, back to homework, back to classes, back to work, and any other kinds of things I can find to cause my brain to fry for the next couple months!

Spring Break what??

What is this 'break' word in relation to the 'spring' word?? Looking outside the window shows no signs of a fun spring, and the break I was supposed to receive did not occur. Between work, moving (again), and digging at Britt (again), I have had no 'break'.

Work has been fun times actually, I have made many great friends :) and do some pretty silly things while at work that keep my mind occupied from other things.

My move has been fairly painless, I haven't had to move too much just yet, but will have to figure out what the heck to do with the heavy furniture stuff since my happy little camp trailer isn't very big. But it is fun to live by my lonesome and do whatever I want, eat whatever I want, watch whatever I want, and most importantly, SING whatever I want =D

Britt was a muddy and mucky mess...rain storms, hail storms, sticky dirt, and lots of traffic left the site very slippery. I actually almost slid down a decently steep hill with our fancy camera, but was saved by a co-worker. (He later tried to push our boss down the same hill :) fun times) We didn't find near as much cool stuff as we had during our public day, but that was the plan. These few units and test units were more for information purposes rather than artifact purposes.

Hail...a bunch of it...only for like 5 minutes

The 'Ivy House' complex...reminded me of a Tetris piece, I loved it

Spring term starts next week, and thus the last final few pages of my Bachelor degree college life. I'm kinda excited!!!

What a Week!

I know it's finals week, and I do have papers to write, but I couldn't help but think about how crazy this past week has been for me! While I can't go into all of the details :) I had to say something about how things can change so fast without you knowing it.

This time last week I had just devoured some delicious cupcakes for Brooke's birthday...they were absolutely delicious, and Erinn and I had a BLAST making them!! We used some of the colorful frosting leftover from Hannah's birthday cake and created some chocolate cupcakes with a small garden worth of fondant flowers and Erinn's buttercream frosting...

Before decorations...we had to cut a bunch more small flowers...we tended to use a lot :) And I totally hogged the blue frosting, I don't think Erinn decorated a single blue cupcake!!

The finished cupcakes that we decided to take to class for Brooke's birthday party...don't worry, there were many more, they were just devoured before Wednesday and given to Erinn's awesome family :)

Wednesday was also the day of a very upsetting incident that occurred for a friend of mine. Tuning into CNN news told viewers of a very sad incident involving a shooting in a Germany airport that resulted in the death and injury of some soldiers. Having family overseas myself I was immediately upset, but nowhere close to what my friend was. It's a very different heartache when you know the people, and I prayed for my friend, for the families of the fallen soldiers, and for my own family to be strong and safe. I am proud to know men and women who are working hard to protect the things that I believe in and will always support them in what they do.

Kyle Holgate

Michael Holgate

Now, Thursday I went out to have a couple drinks for girls night but went a bit earlier than I normally do...I hadn't eaten much for the two days leading up to that, and I'm a lightweight on top of that, and had like three drinks and a shot...needless to say I got a bit drunk...enough to spend some significant time getting to know the toilet and the perfect angle to lean against the wall so I didn't feel sick again. Once again, Erinn proved her unyielding friendship and showed up after a crazy bar call from a friend present. She swooped in and forced water down my throat, made sure I didn't do anything stupid, and even made me stay with her to keep me from getting in trouble. <3 her!

The weekend was filled with work and hang out time. I made a random drive out to Jacksonville to check on my beloved Britt project and inspect the rest of the Gardens (I hadn't actually made it up to the amphitheater thingy, so I wandered a bit). I also got to be a kid again after taking a late night trip to an elementary school playground and tried to slide on my feet down a SOAKED curvy slide, of which my feet shot out and I soaked my bum going down. But it was fun, and I enjoyed running around like a child :)

I can't believe it's been 7 days since I ate those cupcakes because it feels like I've done soooo much since then, but that's the crazy thing about time, you just never know quite how to gauge it.