Snowpocalypse 2014

Winter weather has finally hit the Portland area! On Thursday morning snow began to fall, and by the afternoon it started sticking, and so began Snowpocalypse 2014!

It has been a long time since I have seen it snow like this so I was super excited about it! The snow kept falling through Friday night/Saturday morning and then it turned to freezing rain, yikes! Now our beautiful winter wonderland has taken a turn for the worst. Slowly but surely everything is beginning to thaw out, but until then we are officially stuck in our apartment (which I am in no way complaining about). 

Here are some pics from when we ventured outside! 

As you can see, there are some pretty tall drifts of snow due to the crazy winds we had! The wind made it difficult for us to tell how much snow actually fell, but I think it's safe to say we had 6-8 inches. 

Tifa loved the snow before the freezing rain hit. She had a blast "fetching" snow balls! I love how adventurous and fearless she is! She is small, but mighty! There is a video of her playing in the snow on my Instagram if you are interested! I have decided corgi's in the snow are extra adorable, check it out and see for yourself. 

Like I mentioned earlier, we had freezing rain most of last night so everything is just a layer of ice. Hopefully the roads become safe soon so we can go to the grocery store! ;) 

Stop by later this week for a classic recipe to add to your recipe box! 

Final Moving Update

This will be the last Moving Update for a while (yay!). Yesterday we found out we were approved for the apartment we wanted and today we put our deposit down! Yippee! Unfortunately we will have to wait until the beginning of December to move in, but it's worth it considering this is the place we both really wanted to live. December seems like such a long ways away right now, but it will be here before we know it. 

I will say it feels really great knowing we now will have a place of our own again soon! I miss having our fridge.. But I am very grateful that we both have awesome parents who are letting us store our things (and ourselves) at their houses until our place is ready. Yay parents, we owe you! 

Our animals are adjusting really well. Thomas is super stoked to be back on his "turf", seeing as this is the house he spent almost all of his life in. It is adorable seeing him in such a happy mood because he is "home again". I'm sure it helps that he has his window perches back to watch the birdies :) Tifa is also adjusting well. She LOVES having our families and all the new animal friends around. 

Overall things are good. The first days back in Oregon were very stressful, but I think we are finally over that now.. Especially since we found a place to live! My only complaint is the weather, I miss the warm, 75 degree days! But who wouldn't right? 

On the Road Again

As most of you know, last Saturday was the big moving day. Thankfully packing and loading the truck was a breeze this time! Our friends were really a huge help and made everything so much easier! Big thank you to you both!! It also helped that it was only 80 degrees on moving day, as opposed to 115 ;)

Once everything was packed up, I finished some last minute cleaning. We did our final walk through and we were on our way by 2:30 PM!

Within the first two hours of driving Tom and I decided we could drive right through and not stop at a hotel. Kind of crazy in hindsight, but we wanted to get it done. 

Our animals were AMAZING on the car ride! Tifa was a little angel! She played with her toys some, but she mostly just wanted to sit on your lap and snuggle :) Thomas was also an angel! For this car ride we decided to use Tifa's kennel for transporting. Best decision ever. Tifa's kennel is just a metal cage whereas Thomas' kennel is plastic and he really can't see out of it. He had plenty of room in Tifa's to stretch out and move around. The metal holes were large enough that we could stick our hands in and give him attention. He was so happy. He was purring for a lot of the trip. 

We drove through the whole night and at about 7:00 AM we decided to pull over for a nap. I couldn't fall back asleep so I took Tifa out for a much needed walk/run to get some energy out of her. Then the animals got some breakfast, I got some coffee, and we were on our way again. 

The morning and afternoon were very uneventful. We drove over The Siskiyous and stopped for some lunch near Crater Lake. While doing a quick trailer check (we were towing the car behind us) we noticed a bolt was missing. We decided to call Penske's Roadside Assistance just to make sure we were good to go which turned out to be the best decision we ever made.

Even though we called about a very minor thing, everything regarding the trailer hook up was wrong. The Penske worker who helped us at our pick up location offered to hook the trailer up for us so of course we said yes. After all, he works for the company and does this all the time right? He royally messed up. 

Honestly I do not want to get into the details, but let's just say the guy who hooked the trailer up messed up so bad it's a miracle nothing happened. This isn't even exaggerated. It's a miracle no one was hurt. We brought it to Penske's attention and supposedly they sent a regional manager out to the location we picked everything up from, but we intend to go as high as possible with this issue. We should have never been put in the situation we were in, and the guy who hooked us up should (obviously) not have been doing so because he wasn't trained properly. 

Rant over. 

Once everything was PROPERLY hooked up we kept on trucking. At this point we were about 4 hours away from home, and just wanted to be done. 

We finally pulled up to my parents house around 9:45 PM. We were welcomed with a home cooked meal, happy dogs, happy people, and best of all a shower. 

Since then we have had no time to rest. It has been go, go, go with no end in sight until this morning. We still have a few small things to take care of, but nothing crazy. We really just need to spend time with family, spend time with each other, and get some sleep. 

On that note I am going to make some breakfast and lounge around for a while. Have a great day everyone! :)

Saying Goodbye

As a warning before you dive into this post, this is me rambling. So sorry in advance for the rambling and random thoughts! 

I have been torn about if I should share this post or not. It has been sitting in my draft folder for about a week now. I continue to edit and revise everything only to chicken out and "save as a draft" yet again. But not this time!!

This move back to Oregon is bittersweet for me. I am very excited to see my Oregonian friends and family again, but sad to leave the Arizona ones behind. 

Honestly I fell in love with Arizona. It is different from what I grew up with, but it is still so beautiful. I loved the area we were living at, we were close to everything and as an added bonus our apartment complex was actually pretty nice! Of course anything is an upgrade from our apartment in California.. But I digress. 

I feel like I made lifelong friends while living there. That is so special to me. I will miss each one dearly and I look forward to seeing them again in the future. 

So thank you friends who made Arizona feel like home. I will always remember the past three months spent living down there. It was a wonderful treat, and I look forward to going back and visiting!! 

We made it to my parents house last night around 10:00 PM!! I will make a post shortly about our adventure here :) but for today we are apartment hunting and taking care of some business before we relax and spend time with friends!! 

Have a great day everyone!! :)

Weekend Moving Update

We are now SIX days away from moving day.. It is fast approaching. Scary.

Friday was kind of my calm before the storm. It was my day to relax for a couple hours and catch up on Vampire Diaries (don't judge, I love it) and to get a good chunk of packing done while I was home alone. 

I started in the "coat closet" which has just always been full of boxes. I got rid of a few more things, repacked the boxes, and added in some trinkets that were sitting around the house. Then I got everything out of the desk, and packed. 

I also packed up ALL my sewing and crafting gear! Boo!! That is probably the worst packing task for me! I dislike seeing my awesome supplies shoved in boxes and out of my reach. And I noticed the second I pack everything up is the second I want to use it!! Figures.. 

In the afternoon both Tom and I went and picked out the moving truck and trailer to tow the car behind us. Note to all future movers, Penske is way cheaper and their equipment is in way better condition than U-Haul. 

Later I spent some time figuring out a rough plan of what I am packing and when so I don't fall behind. Just the simple act of creating a checklist really calms me down. It makes me feel more organized and prepared for the days to come. 

Saturday I did very little as I was working at my job most of the day. I did however manage to watch Pocahontas Two with Tom.. Which, by the way, is pretty much the worst Disney sequel I have ever seen.

Today I spent the first half of my day at my job again, followed by a very drawn out and frustrating experience selling our entertainment center on Craigslist. But at least we have that big chunk of furniture gone! And we actually made money off of it, woot!! I am excited to pick a new one out when we get to our new place!! :D I also spent some time creating a wicked, awesome Disney music playlist for the drive!! Score!!

At this point I feel like most of the packing is done. The rest is everything that we use, but we are trying to keep it out as long as possible. Our closet and the kitchen is really the most daunting and time consuming things we have left! Better start washing some laundry.... ;) Then we just have to disassemble furniture. 

All in all I am not feeling too stressed about getting everything packed, but this week will definitely be busy!! Thanks for sticking around through all the crazy! :) For more frequent updates follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Have a great day!! 

Advice for Traveling with Kitty

When I first moved down to California to live with Tom we were lucky enough to have my parents drive down with us. Because of that we were able to make the trip without having to stop somewhere overnight. Unfortunately we do not have that option this time. Since it will just be the two of us driving home we have decided to stop overnight somewhere along the way.

The past few days I have been thinking a lot about our overnight stay and how this will be for Thomas the kitty. Honestly, I am a little concerned about it. Call me a paranoid cat mom or whatever, I just don't want him to be any more uncomfortable than he has to be. Let's face it, poor little guy has been through a lot of changes in the past three months: new sibling, new house, and now a super long car ride and another new house.

One thing that hasn't changed.. His strange obsession with this ONE box! 

This brings me to the point of this post: Has anyone ever traveled long distances with a kitty? Any tips for an overnight hotel stay? Is it better to leave him locked in the bathroom? Or to let him roam free and sleep on the bed like he normally does with us?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!! Thomas and I thank you in advance! :)

Big Announcement!

Yesterday I announced on my Facebook page to keep your eyes peeled for a big announcement on the blog.. Well here it is! 

(again)

This is pretty BIG and exciting news for our little family, seeing as we have been wanting to move back to Oregon pretty much since we left. 

This past Friday we found out Tom was offered an engineering position with a company up in Oregon. I am over the moon happy and excited for him to start this next phase of his career! He is very smart, talented, and a complete professional; I know he is going to rock at this job. 

Thankfully, we have three weeks to move this time, as opposed to one! It feels so good to have the opportunity to try and sell or donate things we no loner need or use, as opposed to just throwing everything in boxes to get the heck out of dodge! 

Unfortunately this means I will probably be more scarce on the blog this month. I had every intent of having some Halloween tutorials up for you all, but moving comes first! Hopefully I can find some time to put something together, but I can't promise anything :( Lame I know...  I will however try to post little updates of our moving progress and adventures!

Until then readers! Have a great day! :) 

One Grand Adventure

One great bonus of having to move around a lot is being able to explore different parts of the country that you probably wouldn't get to see otherwise. So this past weekend we decided to take a mini vacation to go explore some of the wonderful places around us. We decided to check out the Grand Canyon and stay in Flagstaff for the weekend.

Both of us had been to the Grand Canyon before when we were little, but we were still really excited to see it again. I personally felt like I would appreciate its beauty more now that I was older. Last time I visited, I remember being impressed for about 10 minutes then just bored because it was the same "hole in the ground" for the rest of the day. 

So we booked our hotel, packed an overnight bag for ourselves and Tifa (did I mention this was also our first vacation with her??) and off we went! 

She was very excited for our adventure! 

Family all ready to go! 

On the way there we passed signs for Montezuma's Castle. I had remembered my Grandma mentioning it was a cool landmark to see, plus Tifa needed to let off some steam, so we decided to stop there as opposed to at a rest stop. If you are ever down in Arizona (and/or just a huge history buff like myself), Montezuma's Castle is definitely worth seeing. Here is a link to the National Park Service's website so you can read more about the castle and it's history if you are interested :)

Such an amazing sight to see. 

Wish they still allowed people to go up into the castle! :(

Modeling.

Tifa wanted to be included in the photos. 

Essentially that is Montezuma's Castle. There are other, smaller caves carved into the hill that were used for storage and spiritual activities, but that's about it. It is a quick little walk around, all paved with spots to sit and enjoy the view. There is also an area where you can sit and interact with a ranger to learn more about the castle and the people that lived in it. 

Or you can just press a button and have a recording tell you all about it ;)

Anyway, if you are driving through the area I would strongly recommend stopping here for a rest stop and a chance to stretch your legs. That way you can take care of yourself, get a quick history lesson, and some awesome pictures! 

After our quick pit stop we hit the road again to continue on our way to the Grand Canyon. As we got closer we realized we were driving into a rain storm. According to the weather forecast there was a chance of thunderstorms, but oh my goodness were there thunderstorms!! 

Driving to the Grand Canyon.. AKA right into the storm!

So when we finally got to the canyon we arrived right in the middle of a HUGE storm, complete with lightening, thunder, and hail! We hid in the car for a while then just had to take sweet Tifa out to go potty. After she did her thing (TMI?) we ran in the visitors center to wait out the rest of the rain. While inside we met an adorable couple from Holland, they were doing a month long trip along the west coast of the US. They were so sweet, and made waiting for the storm to pass so much fun! 

So then the rain stopped and we dashed outside to enjoy the beautiful view!! The Grand Canyon is so much more beautiful that I remembered it being. The pictures we took do not do it justice. For whatever reason we could not drive around the whole canyon, so we walked some of the way and just enjoyed the parts we got to see. We also learned that Tifa LOVES jumping and playing in puddles. Can you say cute?? I'm thinking she was made to be an Oregon dog ;) Hopefully she will get to play in more puddles soon.. but I digress! 

We stayed at the canyon until it started getting dark, then made our way to Flagstaff. The next day it was raining again in town so we didn't do much exploring, but maybe another time! We would prefer to go back once we have some bikes anyway! :) Then we started on the journey home, only to get stuck driving in crazy intense thunderstorms and traffic. But we made it home safe and sound, then enjoyed a relaxing Sunday together. 

All in all it was an awesome trip. Tifa was the ultimate dream puppy, and we enjoyed our time together exploring nature! Plus Thomas was SUPER snuggly when we got home :P That always helps! Here are some pictures of our time at the canyon, and some cute puppy shots as well! :)

First picture :)

Such a beautiful view.

I was so scared in this picture... 

Our fearless fur ball. 

Cute :)

Puddle lover.. Wish we would have recorded her playing in them. 

On the drive to our hotel. She was so sleepy from her day of fun!