Happy (late) Birthday Mat

Well, somewhat fitting that our last birthday post is a day late, right? We are officially done with birthday posts, but last year, we didn't have all of the birthdays yet, including our (my, Kirsten's) cousin Mat. I have no idea really why I'm posting two days late on this one...I knew Monday, and then I remembered yesterday. Maybe it's the back-to-back guests we had (will post soon) or the heat combined with no air conditioning. Oh well.


Mat (Beth, Jackson and Luke) live in Austin. Mat used to pretty seriously act in plays, loves Star Wars (he even looks like Luke Skywalker), has seen basically every movie ever, and I beat him at Risk once (had to throw that in, I'm still pretty proud of it...). And now Mat directs. He (and Beth) are ridiculously successful, as far as I can tell, I'm pretty sure much more so than I realize. Their company does documentaries, include Lance Armstrong's and several that are on TV. Mat's also a knight. Right—a knight. He was knighted in Belguim for some work he did on a documentary (I could have basically all these facts wrong, so you probably don't want to take them at face-value. I'm too hot right now to cross-check).

these are some of Mat and Beth's (or I guess Alpheus Media's?) Emmys...Emmys!!!

Plus, on top of that, Mat's an incredibly passionate person, sweet, a fantastic father, and great to have a conversation with.


So HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAT, hope it was great!

all the pictures are from Mat and Beth's blog, except the blurry, Emmy, one, which is from my dad :)

House!!!

Lots of exciting things have been happening at our soon to be home in Gresham these days!

They put in the subfloor (I guess that's what you call this maybe?) and covered up our crawlspace...

That was on Sunday afternoon.

Then we went back on Thursday and this is what we saw...

A HOUSE!! Whoa. So get ready for the first (of many I'm sure) internet tour of our new home!

This is our front door. There will be a front porch area here...

Then you come inside. The stairs will be immediately on your right as you come in. There is a hallway that goes into the living room with a little nook on the right for coats etc.

This is the closet under the stairs (that don't exist yet)

This is the only real picture we have of the living room. This is the wall on the back side of the house in the living room that will have our fireplace and two big windows looking out into the back yard.

This is the kitchen. See the window over the sink!? The kitchen will actually eventually be closed in so this picture doesn't really show what it looks like...

This is the dining room! HUGE window on the side of the house and then a sliding glass door out into the back yard!

Here is the back of the house. 

And the left side (garage in the front, kitchen window, and then dining room window)

Here is the view for now from the inside of the garage. 

Pretty amazing huh? We were absolutely blown away. It was amazing to walk into rooms for the first time! It's pretty crazy to watch the process. We are scheduled to move in the middle of October which puts us at around 2 and a half months away which feels super close and so far away at the same time. 

We are enjoying our summer in Portland for now though! More restaurants and the Douglas visit posts to come!!

Happy Birthday Honey Cate!!!

So last Saturday was Kim's birthday but we didn't blog about it because our year of birthday posts are over. But just when you thought it was over, leave it to the Hills to mess things up.

Sunday July 19 our friends Drew and Natalie welcomed a perfect little girl into the world! Catherine Honey Hill, or Honey Cate as she will be known weighed 7 pounds and was almost 20 inches. You can learn more on their blog.

We couldn't be happier for our friends!! They are going to make absolutely fantastic parents. We can't wait to meet Honey Cate!!

Summer Restaurant Review... Take 1

So we thought it might be fun to give those of you that aren't fortunate enough to come visit us this summer a little taste (ha ha taste...I'm so funny) of what you're missing. We have a love/hate relationship with the food of Portland. On the one hand, you can't get any decent mexican food ANYWHERE (at least not what you think of if you live in Georgia...there is one mexican place we like but we'll leave that for another post) and yes, the supply of sweet tea and quality fast food options are depressing (no Chick-fil-a, no Zaxbys...). On the other hand, the food that you can get here is usually really good! We've found tons of places that we love around our apartment and we thought we'd share them with you one by one.

It's only fitting that Pine State Biscuits be number one on our list because quite frankly it's number one in our hearts. We read about it in a magazine while we were still in Idaho and knew right away it was going to be a place we went often. 

They serve breakfast as you may have guessed by the name and as long as it's not after 2pm (when they close) or Monday (when they are never open at all) it is the best breakfast you're going to find outside of my grandmothers houses.

They have sweet tea (and it's pretty good, AND it comes in mason jars!). Their hash browns are amazing. The sell Cheer wine (for all you readers in the Carolinas). But it all begins and ends with the Reggie Deluxe at Pine State. Their signature menu item is a biscuit. Inside the biscuit is a piece of fried chicken, topped with a piece of cheddar cheese, topped with 2 strips of bacon, topped with a fried egg, all swimming in gravy. It is a monster of a thing. The kind of biscuit that makes you tear up with joy when you see it. 

(this is a sub-par picture of the best biscuit in portland...)






So that's restaurant #1 on our internet tour. Stay tuned for less birthdays and more random stuff like this that will make you actually wish we had kept the birthdays going.

Happy Birthday Luke!!!

Well, Daniel said earlier that we hadn't made a birthday post today, but he just meant not yet....

Today is our second cousin's (is that right? our cousin's child...), Luke's birthday. Better known these days as Lukey, this three year old is by far the most entertaining second cousin we have (no offense to the others, but you'll see what I mean in a second.) He's also the most changed person from our wedding period, so you won't be seeing any pictures of him from that. You actually won't be seeing many pictures at all, just videos. Because Lukey is that entertaining. He's amazing. Just watch...

Here's Luke the Olympic Runner...



See if you can hear the theme song to "batman" in this one (which apparently Luke had never heard when he sang it here), followed by "I'm going to fly to Michigan"



Who doesn't love a baby in the bathtub (Beth, I fear later in life he might be scarred)



And him trying to stay awake on a car trip:



Our personal favorite Luke memory is last Thanksgiving:
(holding up his arm, with his fist tucked inside his shirt sleeve) "Look! I lost my hand!"
(pushes it out) "Oh! I grew an-ut-her-one"
(pulls his shirt sleeve over his other fist) "Look! I lost my ut-her hand!"
(continues...)

Well, anyway, hope you laughed as hard as I do...

(okay, and i just couldn't resist these...do you see that last one? he's got his hand up and he's like growling. Super cute...)





HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKEY!!!

ps. all laughter provided by Beth and Mat's blog.

house update!

Two posts in one day and NEITHER are birthdays... that's right. The Monroes are turning over a new leaf!

Our house is coming along SO quickly! I told Matt today that I need to hold on to this feeling because I'm sure soon it will feel like it's moving SO slowly. But as for now visible things are happening every day!

So...since we last spoke about this...

They built frames on top of the footings to pour the foundation...

Frames with vents...

Then they poured the walls of the foundation... giving us a crawl space!!!!

And even more exciting, they put in the beams for the floor!

Just me walking across the living room...

Then we went back today and they had installed some heating ducts and water/sewer pipes over the weekend!

Pretty crazy huh?

And then as we were leaving someone else was showing up to do something else!!!!

So I'm sure we will have more to blog about soon! Stay tuned!

folks from home...

Well we are now just days away from Kirsten's parents coming to visit which means it must be time to finally blog about my parents and grandmothers' visit! I have to say, the reason that posts like this get put off is because they are so daunting! There is SO much to say about everything we did and saw. And there are SO many pictures (thanks a lot dad) to choose from. So I will go ahead and apologize that this is a very brief summary of all the fun we had! That being said...



We had a GREAT time! It was wonderful to see mom and dad and SO nice to see both of my Grandmothers! Grandmother Wheeler flew on her first (and second) ever flights and did great from what I hear. So now that she's used to flying I'm sure she'll be traveling all over the world.





Kirsten put the Grandmothers to work picking strawberries (I'd say they ended up with maybe 2 or 3 thousand...)


We went to all the usual spots (waterfalls, scenic views, etc etc) but really just enjoyed the company. It was fun for Kirsten and I to show off our hole in the ground!

The 4 of them also took a little trip down the coast and saw some redwoods and spend a day in San Fran during the week.





see if you can find mom in this picture...


We also played golf several times, and once mom, kirsten and the grandmothers came, and as you can see were very helpful in pointing out which tree our ball hit. (oh, and mom hit my wife with a golf cart, she isn't safe behind the wheel, not even of a small electric vehicle)





The only sad part of the trip (other than them leaving) was the weather. It was cloudy and chilly most of the time they were here, which isn't normal this time of year. It didn't stop us from doing much though...and we got THIS picture...which is my favorite of all time!!!!



It was a wonderful visit from home! It was great seeing the grandmothers! and it's always nice to see mom and dad. Next time you all come to visit you can stay in our new house!!!

Happy Birthday Susan!!!

Today is our (Kirsten's) aunt Susan's birthday. Susan is my mom's only brother's wife, and we actually have two "aunt Susans" in the family—the other one on Daniel's side.

Sue loves the outdoors and kayaking and hiking and everything. She's really fun and spunky and you can tell she doesn't love small talk, because she's really good at getting past surface-level conversations. She's also a fantastic mother and just plain great to be around.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUE! Hope it's great!!

House Update...

Here is our latest couple of house pictures! The footings for the foundation are down so you can kinda see the outine of our house! The big square in the bottom left is the garage. Our front door will be to the right of that, just to give you a little visual. This picture isnt' the greatest for seeing the whole house...sorry.



This is just a pipe... we get kind of excited about little things...



So that's all for now! The are supposed to pour the walls of the foundation this week!! And then hopefully start framing NEXT WEEK!!! That means get excited Douglas'! You might actually get to see something that looks like a house while you're here!!

Cause the Flag Still Stands for Freedom...

We have so much to blog about it feels like (our house is coming along nicely!!!, we've had guests, other non-birthday related things have been happening) but why not start with the most current events. We spent our 2nd July 4th in Oregon yesterday and it was GREAT!

We headed out to Corbett and celebrated our freedom like a true Corbett-er! First was the Annual Corbett 4th of July Parade, which as far as I can tell is the single greatest moment of the year for many of the people of Corbett. The parade is everything you could expect from a small town. Lots of old cars (and a few cars that have no business being in any parade like - I kid you not - a late 90s chevy pickup) and several tractors, pulling several trailers filled with softball teams, boy scouts and the like.



There were 2 obvious highlights: First was the kid on the Pogo stick. He wasn't affiliated with any float, he was just a kid on a pogo stick, and boy could this kid go! He was jumping rope at one point!



The second was a couple of tractors carrying porta-pottys. That's right. Portable crappers just cruisin down the street. Nothing says freedom like the ability to go the bathroom anywhere!



The parade was tons of fun mostly because we watched it with tons of great friends. We cooked out lunch afterwards and hung around for a few hours before heading home to let our dog out before heading back to Corbett for a nightcap of letting freedom ring.



Our evening consisted of spending WAY too much time at the Corbett Fun Festival, which I have to say was a little light on the "fun" and not entirely heavy on the "festival" even this year.



There honestly wasn't much to see or do at all, which was a disappointment... But we ended up throwing a frisbee around and talking to some friends before the fireworks that night. And I will say that for a small town, Corbett has some pretty big fireworks. I do have to say that I did NOT hear any Lee Greenwood which to me is more than a little communist on the 4th of July, but other than that we had no complaints about the show.

It was really fun for us to spend a holiday out with friends, remembering last July 4th when we still didn't have a job, or know anyone in Portland not named Monroe. We definitely feel blessed to have found the community we did out here!

random

It's supposed to be more than 90 degrees today...I (Kirsten) have been working at a coffee shop this morning and each couple or group that would sit down beside me would start talking about it at some point. I know that it's been basically 100 in Georgia for a week or two now—something I can't even begin to remember.

So I made a smoothie, and I thought I'd share (well, the recipe at least. I can't share the actual smoothie over the internet, even though I think we're getting closer and closer to that.)

So here's what I did:
1/4 bag frozen strawberries
spash of LimeAid
Strawberry yogurt cup

All into a blender until smooth. We drink LimeAid regularly, so we have it in the fridge, but when I made this several weeks ago Daniel's first comment is that it's "tart." I looove it, but I think I might like tart things. I know that my mother in law uses OJ, so that may take some of the tartness out, but we don't regularly keep OJ around.

Anyway, just a small remedy for hot days...and I think 90% of our readers have a hot day today.

ps...I can't wait to have a backyard to enjoy this in...

Happy Birthday Judd!

Today is our (Kirsten's) uncle Judd's birthday!

Judd is married to my mom's sister, and he and Jackie live in East Texas in a
g o r g e o u s house by a lake.

Judd is an extremely talented (and accomplished) artist, knows a ton about and loves history, and is incredibly sweet, kind and caring. Plus, his birthday is really close to America's, so that's really cool (and provided for a great excuse for a party several years ago...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JUDD!! Hope it's great!!