weekend one

kirsten

I think I found a new favorite this weekend.

eating just-picked warm strawberries. Yummmm....

On Saturday we drove about 12 minutes to Kruger's Farm where they had deliciously perfect summer strawberries. Unfortunately, we picked the hottest day of the Oregon year to go, at around 101 degrees. But it was still amazing, and besides eating plain strawberries, we've had strawberries on salads and in cereal, and if we had our own kitchen I'd be making a mess with some jam. Alas, we're keeping it simple.

Daniel says their "best I've ever tasted" quality is in our heads, but I beg to differ, as these truly have to be the best strawberries ever. 

Prior to that, we went downtown after dinner Friday night to an apparent local hotspot called Voodoo Doughnut. It's a pretty crazy place in an uber sketchy (that's for my young life girls) part of town, but they make ridiculous doughnuts (to use their spelling). Daniel had a doughnut with chocolate icing, oreos and peanut butter (their stated best-seller) and mine was covered in Captain Crunch. I think we could feel the sugar pumping through our blood. But they were really good. 

Then Sunday we lunched at Laughing Planet, the local burrito place which, seriously, sells burritos sized as water bottles to fit in your bike's water bottle holder. amazing. And they were good! 

Additionally, we visited a potential church on Sunday. It was really good and everyone seemed nice and, although they said they would get in touch after they met on Wednesday, they called just an hour or so ago and said they'd love to do an  interview on Wednesday! So that's good news. And the other church we've been talking to, with the interview scheduled for tomorrow, had to reschedule for a week from today because not all of their people could make it. But all of that is pretty exciting! (I would tell you more about the churches, but we'll wait until we actually get a job to go into any details...you can call us if you'd like to hear more...)

Tomorrow we're going to try to sneak in a morning movie. Has anyone seen this? Apparently Regal Cinemas shows movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout the summer that are free! Sure, they were made for 10 year olds, but we don't mind. There's a Regal about a minute and a half from us, so we'll be seeing Water Horse: Legend of the Deep tomorrow at 10 a.m. And there's tons and tons of free stuff to do in Portland throughout the summer, so you'll be hearing about more of that.

We'll keep you updated!

p.s. I'll take this time to apologize for the quality of photograph that persist throughout the blog. We're still taking pictures on our iPhones as the digital camera is full and we didn't bring the cord but have yet to ask Matt and Kim for theirs. Even so, the screen gets smaller and smaller every time I pick it up, a product of being four years old now. Therefore, if anyone interested wants to buy me this, I certainly won't object. Shameless plug.

one week

kirsten

this is a picture from our room, on top of our dresser. They make me really happy...

Well, here we are, one week already over (okay, not technically. We got here on Sunday and it's Friday, but still). We've had great weather—we really have no idea what all these people are talking about rain, we haven't seen any...  But it's been in the 70s and 80s and the mornings might be cloudy, but it's blue skies by noon and chilly in the mornings and nights, but that's been perfect.

On Tuesday we explored the city a bit—we took the MAX, or what I've come to call the woosh because that's the sound it makes. It's a light rail, which means it goes on street level most of the time, which means it crosses intersections and cars just wait on it...it's pretty crazy. We started off going to Powells, which is the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world. woah. 

Then we just basically walked around and got lost. We made it to the waterfront park (okay, we really didn't see any of that. Maybe next time. But that first picture, the green grass at the water...that's the park.) We walked past the Chinese Gardens, but turns out to go there it costs $8.50 a person, so we'll wait for that until we have a job. And then we headed to the Pioneer Place mall. Alright, alright. It's really just a mall. But it's in the middle of the city and it's pretty cool. Then we headed home (I don't think I've emphasized how much walking we did—SO much). 

On Wednesday we drove over to Oregon City, which, besides being the oldest town west of the Mississippi, is the location of one of the churches we're interviewing with. It's just south of Portland (like 5 minutes) and definitely has some character. We drove north a bit, scoping out the area, and found a super cool district in Portland that we would be alright living in. And then on Thursday Daniel got a call from the church asking him to come out for an interview on Tuesday. So be praying for that. We'll see...

Other than that I've been working and we've been eating lunches outside in the park across the street and dinners with Matt and Kim. I think we'd definitely say it's been a great week and we're loving it so far. So that's the wrap-up! We got some ideas for the weekend, but I'll wait and just show you later...have a great couple of days!!

Bud Light Commercial of the Week

Thank goodness there is Taco Bell in Oregon....

Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor

I promise not all of the Bud Light Commercials of the week will be directly linked to mexican food. Only most of them. Enjoy!!!

Some GREAT things about Oregon

1. it is BEAUTIFUL! 

2. you do not pump your own gas! that's right. it's actually illegal to pump your own gas. you just pull up to the pump and someone comes running out and pumps your gas. it's amazing! 

3. i don't know if you are ready for this one... there is NO SALES TAX! just let it sink in. no sales tax. so if you buy a sandwich for 2.99 it costs 2.99. so really every day is a tax free holiday! pretty crazy and yet true. i think they make up for it with higher property taxes. sucks for people who can afford to buy houses...we can hardly afford sandwiches.

-daniel

Recap

kirsten

we've been talking about how to distinguish who is writing, so that you—all of our faithful and beloved readers—will know. so the name at the top, or possibly the bottom, will be the one of us that is typing.

I think we're more tired than we thought we'd be. Yesterday—our first full day in Portland—was spent doing laundry and trying to get into a rhythm of work, etc. Daniel set out pretty early looking for a (temporary) job, and filled out applications at several places around town. He also had a phone interview with a church last night that lasted an hour and a half! 

But we definitely took a nap in the middle of the day, suddenly realizing that we were wiped out. It was difficult for me yesterday to try to immediately get in the groove of working, when we certainly don't have any semblance of a routine here; and there's definitely some undeniable pressure for Daniel to get a (temporary) job as soon as possible. So, we're just doing what we can and giving allowance for what we cannot. 

He's off again this morning and I'm about to be working, but first I wanted to truly finish up our trip across the country:

in case you were wondering all along, frantically pulling out maps and trying to trace our route, this is it! This was a bit of handiwork done by yours truly while Daniel was driving, using one of the many maps we had. See where I messed up? And that I had to write Dallas and Portland in because they aren't capitals. 

So that's where we've taken you. And now you know, even though it's a bit late.

And Daniel already told you a little bit, but I'll go over some more of what we literally went through along the way:

12 states

7 capitals

8 tanks of gas

1 oil change (in Denver)

3 (light) rains

1 (not so light) wind storm

3 skunks

1 box of Cheez-its

and we saw 40 different state license plates (I guessed 37! Daniel guessed 30...I definitely win)

So that was our adventure. It was pretty uneventful (thankfully), but now begins the real adventure. Daniel is job-searching and I'm trying to get on some sort of work schedule from home. 

Today we're going into Portland to explore, so expect a report on what we find there!

Also if you are one of those people that expected a phone call...rest assured it is coming. We just needed a few days to get our feet under us. 

WE MADE IT!!!! or WE MADE IT!!!!

Well I guess I've already spoiled the ending, but we made it. We left Boise Sunday morning and 8 short hours later we arrived in Hillsboro, the beautiful suburb of Portland.

We obviously stopped at the Oregon Welcome Center when we crossed the state line and picked up maps and booklets (mostly about the Oregon Trail of course).

The drive through Oregon was beautiful. Maybe we were biased but it was certainly our favorite. We went north to the Washington/Oregon border and drove along the Columbia river all the way to Portland. The drive was pretty enough, but we capped it off with a trip down the Columbia River Historic Highway which parallels 84 going into Portland. It was much slower driving, but the scenery was amazing. Tree-lined highways and waterfalls for 30 miles. It really was a great way to end the trip.

Then we pulled into Portland. We circled it a few times (because we missed our exit) but eventually navigated even farther west to Hillsboro.

So we made it. 2921 miles, 48 hours of driving spaced over 4 days plus one day in Denver. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants an adventure (or to come see us!!) 

Now it's job searching time for Daniel...keep praying and we'll keep you posted (haha, posted...it's a blog)

...One Day He was Shootin' at Some Food, and Out From the Ground Came a Bubblin' Crude, or Go West Young Couple part 4

So we left Denver on Saturday morning early and headed north. We knew it was going to be a long day, but only 2 more to go, so we figured we could hold it together that long. The first stop was obviously a Cracker Barrel (unfortunately not for biscuits and gravy - we had granola bars in the car) to get another book on CD. This time it was Deception Point by Dan Brown. We decided to go with another action novel, figuring it couldn't be worse than The House of Thunder. It was pretty decent on the whole. We certainly recommend that you listen to it if you're ever driving from Denver to Boise.

The drive through Southern Wyoming is...well, boring really. It all looks a lot like this...  Not that there's anything wrong with that. But after 7 or 8 hours you start to have to think to remember what trees look like. But we drove and drove and drove and eventually made it to out. We proceeded through Utah, stopping in Ogden to take in the Great Salt Lake. It was in fact all of those things. It was a lake, it was great, and I'll just assume it was salty. It was nice enough...Ogden on the other hand...

At this point we need to give credit where credit is due. And credit, friends is due to Idaho. Before this little voyage I would have said outrightly that there is no reason a person should even want to drive through Idaho. I mean, thanks to modern food transport, a person can enjoy a potato anywhere, so why go to Idaho? Well no logic could be more faulty. Idaho provided us with some much needed relief. The relief first came in the form of greenery. Next was a river (the Snake river - Kirsten and I's favorite river of all time), but nothing Idaho had shown us could have prepared us for Twin Falls. Twin Falls is a little town about an hour and a half outside of Boise. We stopped there for dinner, but ended up doing some of our most eventful site-seeing by far. As you pull into Twin Falls you cross a bridge over a huge canyon carved out by the Snake river. There is no possible way a picture can do it justice, but here is the best one we got.

If you look hard in that picture you can see that there is actually a golf course in the bottom of the canyon, along with a beach and swimming area. AMAZING! It really was probably the most beautiful thing we saw on the entire trip...and in Idaho of all places. 

So then we ate and started to leave our new favorite Idaho town but as we were driving back across the bridge we saw four guys wearing helmets and backpacks walking out to the center of the bridge. Knowing that only good things could come from that we quickly pulled over to watch and sure enough, a few minutes later, four morons with parachutes jumped off the middle of a bridge hundreds of feet above the Snake river. It was crazy. This is the best picture we got. It at least gives you an idea of how far down it was.

As if that wasn't enough, Idaho was also where we saw our first tumbleweed (Kansas and Oklahoma should be ashamed). It certainly was an eventful Saturday. We arrived in the land of blue turf around 11pm and slept well. One more day...

You Broke a Wagon Wheel and are Set Back One Week or Go West, Young Couple: part 3

We spent Thursday night, all day Friday and Friday night in Denver with our friends Drew and Natalie. It was super good just being with them, talking and hanging out. We got to see their apartment at their seminary and walked to lunch on Friday. Then they had to finish a paper for a class so we headed off to Red Rocks.

It was pretty amazing, huge rocks, and completely aptly named. We didn't get to see much of the amphitheater, as they were about to show a summer movie, but we explored and saw some pretty massive rocks.

For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant basically downtown (the picture above with the intense mural) and then tried to get in free to the Rockies game, to no avail. But we got to wander downtown Denver on a perfect evening.

We also played a pretty ferocious (but short...) game of $100,000 Pyramid (which Drew and Natalie cheated to win) and a much longer game of Scene It (which we killed them on). Up again Saturday morning to continue north and west...

Grandma Died of Dysentery and You Lost Provisions While Fording the River or Go West, Young Couple: part 2

From Dallas we went straight north (all day Thursday), through Oklahoma (singing a particular Broadway song the entire time) and into Kansas. 

At Wichita we ate some lunch in a park (I love the iPhone, finding things is so easy) and then kept north for a little longer before we turned directly east.

Kansas was definitely beautiful to people who are used to a lot of hills and trees (hills and trees are beautiful, too, of course, but Kansas is just different), but it did get a little old. 

We ate dinner at a place called Taco John's, which was like a super upscale Taco Bell and was really good. Unfortunately for us, the only one of importance is in Colton, Kansas, because there aren't any in Oregon.

Then we kept on until Denver, which we got to at about 11 pm mountain time (1 am Atlanta). 

I've failed to tell you all about our books on CD. Thanks to a fabulous last-minute recommendation by Dan Buice, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel just outside of Atlanta and picked up an audio book. If you don't know, you can get an audio book at a Cracker Barrel and return it to any Cracker Barrel, just like a library. (We figured out that you do have to pay $3.5o each time, Dan. But it's been totally worth it.) Plus, they're doing a contest and we could win an RV. Which we feel like could get one-one hundredth of the gas milage that the Corolla is getting. Speaking of, we are currently in Denver and have filled up FOUR times. Four. That's it. It's pretty stinking amazing. 

So we started off with this book, wanting a thriller/adventure to keep us awake.

Don't read it. Really, it was terrible. Trash. We had to turn it off it got SO frustrating. But its 10 hours kept us all the way to Dallas.

And Thursday morning, right outside of Dallas, we picked up this one, promising to be much more interesting and educational.

Which it was. It got kind of long by the end of the trip, but the two aren't even comparable. 

You Lost Two Oxen and Sister Contracted Cholera or Go West, Young Couple: part 1

(I couldn't decide which title was better, so I used both. I mean, I really think the first one is the best, but will anyone besides people who grew up in the '80s understand it? By the way, if you're feeling pretty adventurous, there's this seemingly sketchy site where you can download the game or this one which seems less sketchy but requires Internet Explorer. Think of us while you play.)

This is our car. It looks like we didn't even try, but I promise we did. The bar that we had to hang all our clothes on didn't really work out the way it should have, and so they're all piled up like that. But, you know.

So we're off. We're actually in Colorado right now, but that's for the next post. On day one (Wednesday) we drove from Atlanta to Dallas and stayed with my (Kirsten) grandparents. This was taken at about 5:15 am, right after we left. After which we stopped at Chick-Fil-A for breakfast (coupons!) and kept going...

Straight through Alabama and Mississippi. This drive is pretty boring to me because I used to do it a lot when I was younger and we'd go visit my family in Texas.

This is us eating lunch at the Welcome center on the Mississippi River between Mississippi and Louisiana. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I'm sure you can see the bread somewhere in the car picture above if you look hard enough). And by then we were practically in Texas.

We got to my grandparents at about 5:45 Dallas time (6:45 in Atlanta) and visited with them until all sorts of family started coming over and we ate a truly Texan dinner—a sort of Mexican, chicken, cheesy casserole thing, corn salsa and tortillas. And unsweet tea. We'll have to sweeten it ourselves from here on out. 

After an amazing night's rest we ate a huge breakfast with Bobbie and Papa...hashbrowns and biscuits and eggs and sausage...we were off again by 11. 

If you are super devoted and want to see even more pictures than those we'll be posting here, they're on Flickr. Many of them are taken through car windows, though, so be warned—they're just not that good.

Our 100th Hit!!!!!

well folks, this little operation has only been running for a week and already we've reached our first milestone. 

100 HITS!!!!!

Let me first say thank you to all of you faithful readers out there. without you this clearly wouldn't be possible given that I've only personally visited the site 35-40 times. I can say with a great amount of pride that I was in fact the person that sent the ticker into the triple digits. what can I say, an artist likes to admire his work. Here is a little 100 hits treat...the American Film Institutes top 100 movies of all time. Take two minutes and see how many you can guess before you look (hint: Cool Runnings was left off because they didn't feel it fair to even group it together with other movies for fear that they would all seem trivial and meaningless by comparison).

So great work blog-readers, but let's not stop here. I believe that with a little dedication we can double this number before the novelty wears off! 

AFI's Top 100 Movies

A Sad Day in S Town

We went to Suwanee for the last time before our big trip today to say "see you later" to a few of our close friends. Leaving places is by far the worst part of ministry, especially when you are surrounded by such amazing friends. We will miss you all terribly, but are excited to see what the coming years hold for you all. 

here's a shout-out to Abby, the first person to tell us that danielandkirsten.blogspot.com is her new homepage. way to go Abby!

Daniel and Kirsten's Big Adventure

So this is the official blog-world announcement. Many of you probably already know, and some of you are actually offering your homes—some for a night, some for an indefinite period—but as of this Wednesday, June 18, we will begin a long trek to our new (for now) home of Portland, Oregon.

That's right. We're moving to Portland. We use the term "moving" loosely. We don't actually know how long we will be there, or what we will be doing, or how we will be doing it...but we're going, and we're pretty excited. We have had the Portland area on our hearts for quite a while now, and really do feel like the Lord has something for us out there. Maybe our adventure will last a month or two, maybe a year or two, but either way, we know that God is faithful and will surprise us with amazing things along the way.
Our plan is to arrive in Portland Sunday night and for Daniel to find a temporary job (free rentals here we come!!) while he looks for a ministry job in the area. We will be setting up camp with our favorite sibling and sibling in law and are really excited about exploring the area with them. 

So for those of you who care, this is where we will be living: the glorious guest bedroom (and bathroom) of Matt and Kim Monroe:

So that's it! We're really doing it! It's a little scary, but we are exciting. We would love your prayers for safety in traveling and jobs when we arrive. We will certainly keep you updated. Time to go celebrate our dads!!!

Bud Light Commercial of the Week

It has come to our attention that when you have a blog it is somehow suddenly your responsibility to put things on that blog. Well, not being people who like to buck the system, the Monroes will fill that responsibility.

And what better way to do that than to introduce the "Bud Light Commercial of the Week" brought to you by the Taco Bell 89 cent value menu. Enjoy!

Mr. Silent Killer Gas Passer

and so it begins...

well online world...your prayers have been answered. Daniel and Kirsten finally have their very own blog. Maybe you, like Daniel aren't even really sure what a blog is. Maybe you're thinking, "hey, Monroe's, aren't blogs just for middle aged women and Drew Hill?" well the answer is yes. but we the Monroes are all about breaking the mold and thus "The Monroe Doctrine".



"But anonymous poster" you say, "what can we expect to find on this, our new homepage?"



Well blog reader, the answer is simple. I don't know. Maybe you can read some overly detailed snippet about our lives. Maybe you can even spot us (or even yourself if you're lucky) in a photo or two. Maybe you can waste 2-4 minutes bi-weekly while you're at work.



In short, if you've ever said to yourself, "Boy, I wish I knew what Daniel and Kirsten were up to, but not enough to call and ask." then THIS is the blog for you!!!!! Happy reading.