the big one

well, I know it's getting late in Georgia, but you didn't think I'd let the day go by without giving you a chance to wish daniel a happy birthday, did you?

today, Daniel turned 26. at 12:23 in the morning (I think) according to his mom...

Amanda, you were officially the first to offer him birthday wishes at exactly 9:03 Portland time last night (12:03 am Georgia time)...shouldn't you be studying?

Our day has been full (and there's still much to it left) and we will tell you all about it soon, as well as show off his birthday gifts...

Don't worry...we've already started in on his funfetti birthday cake...

and he's worn a pointy hat all day (okay, that's not true)...

okay, since we usually say really nice things about people here on their birthdays, but it's our blog and he's my husband so it would probably be kind of mushy, I'm gonna put the pressure on and let you guys say really nice things about him!! So anything you want...he's really funny or he has great hair, or you know, whatever...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL!!!! (love you!)

p.s. these pictures are from an applebees in georgia, according to my computer, from last october. but i just really like them. :) 

birthday camping

we went camping this weekend, to celebrate daniel's birthday a little early...

we headed out thursday evening to a tiny lake called summit lake near mt. hood. we were the only ones there basically the entire time which was super nice...

it was nickel's first time camping and words don't describe how much she loved it. we have never seen her run so much. since we were alone, she was off the leash and seriously, all she did friday morning was flat out run for five hours...

plus, she came close to swimming, which she's never done before. her and i have been on a couple of hikes with some ladies around here, one of which has two dogs that swim out into a river we walk to. nickel is dumbfounded, but she's getting closer...

and we went on several walks...

the trees go on for forever, as you can tell. no signs of fall here, though, which is why they call it evergreen, i suppose...

this is the sunrise friday morning over the lake. we made some really bad coffee (have to perfect that) and shivered while we watched it come up over the trees (it was cold...) and nickel drank from the lake (see her?) ...lots of fun!

Happy Birthday Melissa

Melissa Braswell turns 19 today (assuming today is Friday the 26th). 19. I mean really. Someone please tell me I'm confused and that Melissa is really only 15. Tell me I'm not that old.

At any rate...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA!

Melissa is my (Daniel's) cousin and I would probably say that growing up she was the one that was most like me. Melissa doesn't know too many strangers and rarely has trouble coming up with something to say. She is also always smiling which really makes her fun to be around. Kirsten's first memories of Melissa are that for the first 2 years we were dating, Melissa complimented her on something she was wearing literally EVERY time they saw each other. EVERY time. That's who Melissa is. She is warm, caring, country like her dad, and has great hair (which she gets from the other parent I'm sure).

So here's to Melissa! Happy Birthday. We miss you and can't wait to see you at Christmas. Hope you draw my name!

Happy Birthday Jeremy!!!!

Well, it's late, but in Oregon it's still September 24th which means it's still Jeremy Noa's birthday! (he's the one on the far right)

Jeremy, for those of you that don't know is a Young Life leader in Gwinnett, and a dang good one. He not only runs anything and everything technical, he also happens to be the funniest character man I've ever seen. He's even starred in an opera or two!
Jeremy is nothing if not dependable. He never misses a cue with music, and absolutely NEVER forgets to turn on the mic during "Choices" at entertainment night.

He really is great with high schoolers. He has an amazing heart for ministry and a passion to see students know Jesus. He's also one of those friends that everyone should have. Allen is lucky to have him (until I woo him out to Oregon).

So here's to you Jeremy. Happy Birthday buddy.

eventful weekend

well, if we've been quiet here, it's because we were preparing for what happened sunday night...but more about that soon.

let's start with friday. fall colors. fall temperatures (highs in the 60s, eek). we started with a cupcake in the park while nickel ran in circles around us like a crazydog.

saturday morning we headed to the hood river county fruit loop. the "cereal" daniel likes to call it (fruit loop...) essentially it's just like a 36 or so mile stretch of road at the base of mt. hood. the valley has extremely fertile soil, and so tons of fruit trees and bushes and the like grow there and so it's become an attraction of sorts—berries of all types early in the summer, cherries in late summer, and apples and pears all fall!

the views of the mountain were gorgeous. it's by far the closest we've ever been to it and while not much snow remains on parts of it that we can see usually, i'm pretty sure that huge chunk of snow right there is actually the year-round glacier on the mountain, which is pretty stinkin cool.

and we got plenty of apples (just for a pie and eating this time...don't worry, we did the apple butter and sauce last year and still have some leftover, so we'll wait on that until next year) and a couple of delicious pears.


and look what else we saw!!!! farm animals!!!


and alpacas!!! these things are amazing. they're like a sheep/llama mix. and apparently these alpaca farmers make a ton of money doing this, so we're considering it for retirement in 70 or so years...

we ate some oregon bbq and were home in plenty of time for a victorious football game

and then sunday.

our first youth group event!!!

so yes. our first ever CRCC youth group event sunday night. it went SO WELL. we had 50+ high school and middle schoolers, which is huge!!! the excitement was super high, the place packed and daniel wore a blue leisure suit. we did donut olympics (which at this point i need to apologize to all NGHS students and former students. we miss you guys!)

we've heard great feedback since, and since i'm a third party and think you all should know...everyone has been really, really impressed by daniel and how it all went. so yay! huge success...now we just have to keep momentum up and excitement high and keep kids interested. but we're REALLY, really excited, really encouraged not only by everything that's happening, but by everyone here, and really can't believe it went so well. did i mention it went well?

okay, we're off to a high school volleyball game (we're now experts on high school volleyball, by the way, in case anyone's interested...)

ps. you can see more of these pictures, as always, at our flickr page

the park!

so i've certainly mentioned the park near our apartment. it's about an 11 minute walk (i timed it the other day...) and it's amazing. the dog park part of it is pretty big and, like most of the dog parks i've seen here, it's not fenced — which is totally weird to me. it's basically just a dog "space" that the dogs run around in and best as i can tell, if the dogs go outside of it, no one goes psycho. 

can you tell how green everything is? i know i'm probably biased, but it's so, so, so, so green. i try to take nickel on this walk everyday, but it doesn't always work out. i'm trying to catch up on work and still getting the house in order right now, and sometimes i just don't have time, but i really like going and the weather is perfect right now.

these are much more blurry because nickel was being extra-hyper, but the ones at the top were taken about a week and a half ago, and these were taken yesterday. can you tell the difference? do you see fall? now there's leaves on the ground!!!

the weather is gorgeous right now — like in the 60s in the morning and then warms up to the 80s or so with a breeze by the afternoon. except for yesterday. yesterday was almost 90 degrees. hot, hot. 

i promise pictures of the apartment are coming soon, for those of you who grab your monitor daily and shake it in frustration that you haven't seen how we've decorated. i'm just a snob and want everything to be "done" before we put it on the internet. ...and we're almost there. we have to be. 

have a great weekend!!

what can you say...

This guy is awesome.

testosterone

let me be the first to apologize to the ever dwindling male monroe doctrine reading population out there. trust me, i never intended to abandon you like this. i've been busy wondering why i spent so much time praying for a job. they actually expect you to work apparently. oh well. you live and you learn i suppose.

but we're back in the saddle as it were and ready to up the man quotient of the blog by a point or two by talking a little about (what else) college football. So here's what I know at this point:

1. Georgia is highly ranked and highly injured. The good news is that the vast majority of the "experts" are picking Florida, not us, to win the SEC which essentially puts us in the drivers seat. the not so good news is that i'm pretty sure at this point me and two 7th grade girls from the youth group could see considerable playing time on the offensive and defensive lines as walk-ons.

2. i currently live in a region of the world where it is apparently a competition to see who can wear the ugliest uniform.

it is, however, a constant struggle to finish second. we all know who the top dog is in this fight.




3. tim tebow is a morally sound, upstanding christian man, doing great things for the world and specifically to spread his faith.

given that fact, i sincerely hope that the injury he suffers this season is not career ending. he will make a great tight end for the falcons one day. plus he has a pretty girlfriend to take care of financially.
no time is a bad time for a joakim noah joke.

4. braxton is not loving life right now....sorry buddy.

5. this is one good lookin animal. honestly.

6. georgia tech has suddenly emerged as the front-runner in the powerhouse ACC. enjoy it while it lasts, soon everyone will be running that devastating option attack.

those are the facts after week one. it's going to be a good season.

a little bragging

i know this blog has become heavily kirsten-voiced, but Daniel's been hard at work—at work—leaving me home with the pictures, and plus I think we're probably still playing catch up a bit...

so i thought i'd show this off today. i made this for my friend sarah's brand new baby girl right before we left for atlanta. this was the very first time i've ever made baby clothes and it was super fun. at one point i had the "bodice" all unfolded, but sewn together basically and i folded it up to become what it is and almost started crying. it was sooooo tiny!

plus, this gave me an excuse to go to what some say is the coolest local fabric store ever, bolt, here in portland. it definitely lived up to expectation with gorgeous fabrics. i could spend all our money there, but then daniel might be wearing gray and yellow flowers around, and no one would like that. 

we now return to our regularly scheduled programming

well. I know you all will forgive us for the prolonged absence. you could say it was the moving, but we had no intention of not posting. somehow we just got more and more tired and worn out and beaten up and then it turned into a complete avoidance of the computer altogether for fear of how much catching up there was to do.

but here we are, back. for good this time, too, promise. so let's catch you up. we had a great week at home...spent some time with family and a couple of friends and packed, packed, packed.





the truck was enormous. i don't think there's even a way to express it unless you saw it. and if you did, you know. but we filled it. i mean—it was all the way to the door. we could have packed better/higher, but it got extremely full the way we packed it. (can you tell how big it is when compared to the monroe's two-story house?!)



then we drove. i essentially stared at the back of a budget truck for four days. i was in the element with nickel and daniel was in the truck. the first day was a breeze. we stopped a couple of hours beyond st. louis and got there about dinner time. nickel had no idea what to do about the hotel, she was completely freaked out, but we got in, got her some food and water, and daniel went back out to get us some dinner. we parked the car perpendicular to the truck, behind it, so that if any troublemaker tried to break in, at least they'd have a hard time getting things out.


nickel was great throughout our drive. she would pace and such right after we started driving, and every time we were getting off an exit, but otherwise she either slept or sat and looked out the back window, which was absolutely hilarious to see out the rearview mirror. the biggest thing was that we had given her an old down feather comforter to sleep on that took up the entire back of the element and about an hour into the drive she had torn a huge hole in it and feathers were everywhere. there was no stopping it, and we drove with feathers all over the place, leaving feathers each time we stopped. it looked like nickel had been fighting a flock of chickens in the back of our car.




the next two days were miserable. we had probably 15 or 16 hour days both days and our bodies really started feeling all that driving. and then on tuesday we left boise idaho and arrived at our apartment!!!!

get this—no break-ins, no accidents, no tragedies, and NOTHING broke!!! isn't that unreal?!? all we had was a hole in a tire of the element that i had to get patched this morning for a total of $12.50. so that's fine by me, no harm done.

when we arrived, several people from the church, along with matt, came to help us unpack and try desperately to sqeeze the couch through a maze of doors, but eventually got everything in and helped us set up our bed. we ate dinner together and celebrated before daniel, nickel and i returned to the apartment to continue unpacking until 2 a.m. ugh. we were completely overwhelmed, but determined and desperate for some normalcy.




daniel returned to work the next morning and wednesday and thursday i steadily continued to unpack, albeit incredibly slowly. it was at this point (above), sometime thursday evening, that i said to daniel "alright, it's finally beginning to look manageable."

we were determined to get it "done" by last night and make a meal at home. we did it—kind of just barely, each day stopping earlier and earlier because of simple exhaustion. of course, we took a break to eat breakfast at a pizza & sports bar that opens at 9 during the football season and has the espn college football package, plus tvs in each booth. we were the only one's there. haha. but we were there, nonetheless. for a win and the beginning of an intense season. we did eat breakfast, by the way. they make that, too, during the footfall season.

but last night we cooked dinner in our apartment's kitchen and ate it at our dining room table. ahhhhh.... and just before that we took nickel to forest park for a little fresh air (we had been in the apartment alot.) she had fun and we got to run around and play.

the bridge we accidentally crossed going to the park...really cool






and this morning is supposed to be back to normal—i took nickel to the park and let her run around in the dog park, but then took a small nap. i'm still tired somehow, but I know it's getting better. and now I'm bracing the computer again, prepared to catch up!