Playing tourist in Portland

One thing you need to know about Portland is that our summers consist of 3 months.  The remaining 9 months are gloomy and/or rainy.

I'm ok with the rain and gloom - but it  doesn't make for a good time to have visitors.  The hikes are limited.  The outdoor walking is limited.  The coast is chilly.  

But the 3 months that we DO have of summer are amazing.  We always say we put up with the 9 months of rain for the amazing 3 months of summer.

But the hard part about only having 3 months of good weather is that means there's only 3 months where people can visit.  What does that mean for us?  Back-To-Back-To-Back Visitors.

BUT we love having friends and family get to experience our city - so it's a price we pay!

We recently had the hubs' family in town for 4 days, and then the next day my Aunt and Cousin came to town for 5 days.  

We.

Did.

Everything.

I got super sick (of course) so I was more focused on trying to see if I could work in a nap time with my head cold, but I still put my big girl pants on and played tourist in Portland.

We hit up the coast, the gorge, Hood River, berry picking, and all of Portland (did a West side day, an East side day, and a West + East side day).

Cannon Beach

Crepes!  

Our berry picking view of Hood

Salt and Straw

While I love my city - I learned that I'm a horrible tour guide

I loathe driving, parallel parking, and navigating new neighborhoods.  I was probably more stressed than I needed to be and couldn't quite enjoy the time.  But we got to hit up all of Portland's finest (Salt and Straw, Food Carts, Pittock Mansion!) so I'm not complaining one bit.

Engagement Photos!

Ok this post may be a little misleading.

When I say "photos" I really only mean 2 pictures (and I threw a 3rd in for giggles).  Aaron and I are sending a lot of our pictures as Christmas gifts this year for family (SPOILER ALERT) and we are trying to keep the pictures a surprise :-)

BUT for now here are the pictures we have shared with our friends and family!

We got our photos done in Northern Washington (Bellingham, WA) from Meg and Aaron with Evantide Photography and BOYHOWDY they were a hoot-and-a-half.  They were so much fun and Aaron and I LOVELOVE our photos!

Aaron was adamant that he wanted photos done up in the Mt. Baker wilderness.  Good luck love, good luck.  It was near impossible finding a photographer that would travel that direction and not charge an arm and a leg.

It must have been meant to be, because I happened to stumble upon Evantide who not ONLY were willing to travel to Shucksan/Mt. Baker, but were also conveniently having a photo workshop the same weekends we were considering!  They were extremely accommodating and I can't say enough good things about their business.  To top it all off, they were awesome.  So fun.  So funny.  You can tell in half of our pictures we're both laughing hysterically! 

My Backyard - Hometown

Hi Friends!

The other day I was in the airport leaving my day-and-a-half trip to Vegas, because I work for the coolest company that has an annual company conference in Vegas.  Although I was still an 8 hour drive from Reno, I thought I'd finally make this post I've had in mind for a while.

I constantly see people post pictures on their blog of this magical land called "Tahoe."  They then proceed to talk about where Tahoe is and how beautiful it is.  Every time my comment to those posts is "that's my backyard!!"

I'm from Reno, NV.  Born and raised.

Via

I tell people this and they usually give that, "Gross" look.  It's not gross, unless you go downtown.  Then it's gross.  But Reno is lovely, especially if you're outdoorsy.

So welcome to my Hometown Backyard.

We have Santa Pub Crawls 

We have Wine Walks

We have Balloon Races and Dawn Patrol

We have Night in the Country and amazing sunsets #NoFilter

We have Donner Lake and backyard rock climbing

We have TAHOE

Via

I could go on and had to limit the pictures I used, but Reno really can be a fun city.  Not to mention the Doughboy Donuts rock ANY donut shop here in Portland.