To Newport- Squeeky Cheese and Fish!

Recently, Casey and I took a trip out to the coast. Our destination: the oregon aquarium in Newport. On the way we stopped in Tillamook valley, where alot of the pacific northwest's dairy is produced. There's a big cheese factory there and we went in for the tour/tasting. We had to pick up some of their cheese curds, they're called squeeky cheese because you can hear a squeek as you chew them. Pretty tasty too I might add. We also went to a smaller french cheese making company and did their wine/cheese tasting. We bought an extraordinary amount of cheese for two lactose intolerant people, but I guess that's a testament to the power of cheese. The weather at the coast was pretty miserable but the ocean waves were huge and got to see the ocean as I'd never seen it before. Our hotel room was nice and the Aquarium, though small, was nice too. I never realized that aquariums have mostly creatures that are from the regions around their locales. This aquarium had lots of things that live in the oceans around here, totally different from the critters at the florida aquarium. We also did alot of shopping around gift shops and antique stores on this trip which was loads of fun.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO

CLICK HERE FOR THE PICS

Artsy Fartsy

College has given me new reasons to make art. Lots of it.. for a grade. I've gotten the chance to work with materials I've never worked with before, and use techniques I've never tried. Some interesting results have emerged, and a brief description of the major ones follows:

-Copper Wire Horse bust, covered with tracing paper that was soaked in acrylic emulsion.
- 2 clay nudes, sculpted with a short time limit while looking at a live model in class
- my first hand cast, pieces broke during the hardening process so I made the most of it and turned it mechanical looking.
- second cast turned out perfect, so I cast my torso in plaster and finished it with shoe polish. my hand is spray painted and details done by hand. The hand gesture is the sign language meaning love, and I placed it a shadow box I carved in the chest st symbolize my heart.
-we had a mold making project where we took eggs and put clay on them to make a figurative sculpture, I chose an owl, and then made a silicone mold from which I cast plaster repeats.
-When tressa unpacked we found a painting I had made her a few years ago, no one else has seen it (to my knowledge) so I threw it in here too.

CLICK HERE FOR ART PICS

Mt. Hood and the Sledding Adventure

 

Winter got it on in full force and later than usual, dumping tons of snow everywhere...  Good thing we like sledding! We took a couple trips out to play in the white stuff, and I was fortunate enough to be there for Tressa to see her very first snow. Driving up Mt. Hood in it was scary, luckily Casey had some snow driving experience and drove us out. I drove us back and managed to get us home in one piece. While we were there, I started to make a life sized snow horse sculpture, but it got dark before I was halfway done. People at our sledding hill weren't scared of the dark, they simply pulled out a big generator and flood light and kept on having fun. Before we left we had a colossal snowball fight too. 

CLICK HERE FOR SLEDDING PICS

CLICK HERE FOR SLEDDING VIDEO

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The Search for Perch

Getting Sora sparked some creativity in the members of our household. People made her toys, and concocted a plan to make her an elaborate play structure. We decided on using driftwood and were going to assemble it into a tree shape for her to climb around on. One place we know of that's great for finding driftwood is our secret spot on the Washougal River. I've previously posted pics from picnics we've had on the rocky beach there. It was a nice day, perfect weather, so we set off. We stopped at another riverside area en-route but instead of finding wood, we just found a nice floating dock and photo op. Once we got to the right spot we remembered all the good wood was downriver and the only way to get over there without getting wet is to climb over a couple of downed trees and hike along side the water.

 Tressa ended up falling in once we had hiked to the area with the best wood... she always ends up falling in or falling down when we go hiking, it's now a tradition lol. We found so many awesome pieces, but had to limit ourselves because we had to hike back over the downed trees to the car with them. Tressa helped alot with that, she was already wet from falling in so she just stood in the water and we handed the wood to her and she passed it to Shaun on the other side.

Lots more pics to see: CLICK HERE
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Happy Valley, and a failed road-trip....

Happy Valley, our new home. The pic above is of the flowering trees across the street from our house. Moving from Oregon city took me a little farther away from school, but brought my other roomies (Tressa, Rachel, and Casey) all closer to their work/schools. It was a strenuous and lengthy move, but all in all a good one. We've all been working really well together as roommates, and we all love our cute little house. When we moved in, the house needed a little sprucing up, mainly paint colors, but it was in pretty good condition as it was. A few weeks of busting butt and we're were pretty much unpacked.

 Naturally, a house-warming party was in order. We invited all our friends and throughout the night we probably had over 20 people come in and out. Folks brought all kinds of yummy foods with them, and we roasted marshmallow peeps over the fire pit in the back yard. Some people tried playing Horseshoes but one of the dogs kept chasing them and almost getting himself hit in the noggin. We played a killer game of charades, some challenging and hysterical moments followed, including people acting out: unicorn, Benjamin Franklin, math, mermaid, rainbow, narwhal, super mario, titanic, ocean, wicked witch, and many more. People did surprisingly well. Towards the end of the night we came into the living room to find a few guests rallied around the TV. Casey's brother Jake had put in a movie: "My Fair Lady." Pretty funny scene, the lot of us watching an old musical, some singing along. It was a really fun evening!


Before people arrived, Casey took a video-tour of the house to show all yall "back home" our new place:

CLICK HERE FOR THE HOUSE TOUR VIDEO
 

The pic above was from a "failed" road trip we took out to Mt. Hood to do a hike. I call it failed because we set out to go hiking at a place Tressa and Rachel had been previously but we didn't know the gps would take us a different route than they had taken before and we were unable to find that spot. After an hour of looking roadside for other trails, we realized we had driven too close to the mountain and we were starting to see snow, which none of us were dressed properly for. We turned back for home, losing daylight, and settled for walking around a park/dogpark they visit regularly. The dogs got a good run around and at least it was a nice "Sunday" drive.



I combined the photos of the process of painting the house, the housewarming party, and the "failed" road trip in one album: CLICK HERE FOR PICS


There's also a video I took looking out the back window on the strangest weather day I've ever seen. First it was raining, then it stopped for a bit and was sunny and warm, they it began to hail, then rained, then snowed, then was sunny again. The video is of some of the hail:   CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

A strange holiday

So 2011 ended in a mishmash of good and bad. Talk about an emotional roller-coaster. Mainly my grief was focused around life change: a transition from working full time to going to school full time, moving again, and family stuff. In case you didn't know... I'm a Virgo. The ultimate creature of habit, lover of routines. We typically hate change of any kind. We highly dislike chaos. But we need it because without it, our lives would become stagnant ruts. Sometimes it takes unfortunate circumstances- catalysts that kick us in the pants and force us move out of our comfort zones and on with our lives. It's a gift really, that the universe gives us; even if it it's hard to get past the uncomfortable wrappings.

In the time surrounding the holidays Casey and I took a nice trip up to Seattle. I showed her Pikes Place Market, we explored the driftwood beach I had only gotten a glimpse of during my trip up with Mom, and we walked around the city a bit. We stumbled upon this hidden little place in an alleyway that apparently isn't on any of the visitor's tour guides, but had been visited thousands of times. It's an ever changing monument: The Chewing Gum Wall. Gross, yes. But you have to admit this oddity is impressive. A stretch of wall about 50' long and as high as people could reach, completely caked with previously chewed gum in every hue imaginable. Several inches thick in places, rubbery icicles dangling from the window sills, from years of people leaving their sticky mark that says "I was here." Some people took it a step further and made pictures, you can see the space needle and a ferry on the window in the photo. I admire their ode to this great city.

Not long after returning from Florida, Tressa and I jointly added a new member to our household: Sora! She is a Green Cheek Conure, a small parrot type bird. Her name means "Sky" in Japanese. Sora has been a joy to have around, she is one of the sweetest and most cuddly birds I've ever met. She always come to greet us at the cage door, wanting nothing more than to ride around on our shoulders and snuggle up in our necks. I had never heard of her species before, but now that I know what wonderful little creatures they are, I'll probably never have any other kind of bird as a pet. She has even softened the heart of Casey, a previous dis-liker of birds. Now she can't wait to take her out of her cage each morning to say hello.

Here's a couple of videos we took of Sora, me petting her, and her petting Tressa! As Always, don't forget to make the video it's highest quality by clicking on the button shaped like a gear to the bottom right of the movie. Also, turn up those speakers, I take time choosing good music to go along with the videos!

Sora Pets Tressa Video

Me Petting Sora

And there are more random photos from the Seattle Trip, The holidays, and all the other stuff around that time:

CLICK HERE FOR THE PICS
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A Long Pause

I know, I know. I said I wouldn't do it again- make you wait this long for an update... but I have a real and proper excuse this time... homework! LOL. As many of you know I've just entered my second term of college. It's been a fun and exciting (see: busy) time so far, but I'm loving every second of it. At times I think to myself "this isn't so hard... I could have done this right out of high school," but then I stop myself. This journey of a life I've had, it has proceeded precisely the way it should. I'm getting WAY more out of this school experience now than I would have at age 17. It's more meaningful since I'm the one who chose to go, because I wanted to, not because it was simply expected. Having lived a little longer, I've gleaned a perspective that my 17 year old self could never have, that this experience is truly valuable and it's up to me to make the most out of it. The outcome depends solely on myself and I intend on making the most out of it... but I digress! You came here for photos and videos of my adventures, not  me pontificating on my college experience lol.

I will try to do a brief re-cap of the last four months since the last update:

-Casey and I took a trip to Seattle
- Went to FL for the holidays
-Got fired from the phone job on Christmas day
- The Oregon City housemates and I celebrated the holidays when I returned
-Went to the Zoo
-Shaved my hair off for Alia
- Started College at Clackamas Community
-Tressa and I jointly adopted a Green Cheek Conure
-Took a trip to Mt. Hood
-Me, Casey, Tressa, and her girlfriend Rachel all moved in together 
-Took another trip to Mt. Hood
-Shaved my head again because I decided I really like it
-We threw an awesome house-warming party
-Went to the coast with Casey
-Casey and I just celebrated our 9 month anniversary.
-Made a bunch of art for my class.

All the spare time between the above events has pretty much been filled up with homework and moving/unpacking.

Not as visually exciting of an update as previous ones, sorry about that... Moving away from the Gorge has  changed what types of activities we do in our small spare time. Instead of being minutes from hiking and waterfalls, we are now minutes from places like  Wunderland: the nickel arcade/ $3 movie theater, Mcmenemans: and awesome local chain of cheap movie theaters/pub/restaurants/ soaking tubs, food carts, urban parks, coffee shops, art galleries, shops, museums. and other city dwelling activities.


Here's the last four months in words and pictures: