A Portland Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we packed up our bags and flew to Portland, Oregon to visit some of our very best friends Jenna and Chase and their baby Ivy. Jenna and Chase are some of our greatest friends ever so we were glad we got to spend the holiday with them. It was Miles' first time meeting Ivy and she fell in love with him within minutes. The babies love him! We don't have any nieces yet, but Ivy may as well be. We love her so much.

Jenna and I debated whether we should attempt making our first Thanksgiving dinner, or just go the easy route and go out to a restaurant. We decided to give it a try, and I'm so glad we did! Jenna did most of the work preparing and shopping for the food then we threw it all together Thanksgiving day. It was relaxed and fun and delicious. Jenna and I have experienced many life milestones together, so it just felt right for us to make our first Thanksgiving feast together too.

After dinner we went for a drive around rainy Portland....

..followed by an intense lipsync battle. I swore on my life that I wouldn't share any of the footage...ugh. Jenna and Chase won the battle with an amazing rendition of 'Love Shack' and 'Fancy'. Miles and I took on 'I just died in your arms tonight' and 'I believe in a thing called love.'

Friday was the day Gilmore Girls fans had been waiting for for a year! The reunion! I had never been so excited for a tv show or movie ever. Jenna and I spent the morning in our pj's watching the first episode while our husbands went on a donut run. We finished the other episodes that night (Miles and Chase stayed up past midnight watching it with us, best husbands ever). Unfortunately we were pretty disappointed in the whole thing. I'm going to try to erase it from my memory and just keep my love of the first 5 seasons in my mind. 

Other highlights of Friday included teaching Ivy the duckface (hahaha!!) , and visiting the Portland temple.

Saturday we headed downtown to the Saturday market. It was nice because we finally got a little taste of fall, we skipped that in San Francisco. 

 Portland is pretty weird. Even more so now that Jenna and Chase are there ;)

Look at Ivy. She is the cutest thing EVER. 

We ate a whole bunch of delicious fried foods at the Saturday market, and then finished it off with a trip to Salt&Straw for ice cream. They have all sorts of crazy and delicious flavors. I got the honey lavender, and Miles got the pear and blue cheese which was so delicious. Salt&Straw is definitely not over rated.

We ended the trip with a visit to some beautiful waterfalls. Oregon is so green and amazing. We can't wait to come visit Jenna and Chase again in the summer when we can explore and hike more. 

It was such a happy Thanksgiving with some of our greatest friends. We wish we didn't live 10 hours away. Jenna summed it up pretty well when she said, "I don't want you to leave because we are going to have to go back to acting like normal people." Haha!

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We have so much to be thankful for this year. Our marriage, our family,  our friends, our jobs, our home, all the opportunities we have, and especially our Heavenly Father and our Savior. We have been blessed beyond measure and are so grateful that God gave us this beautiful life to live. 

Questival!

Can't wait to win!

FRIDAY

Miles took me on a date last Friday. We went back to Rove Kitchen because they have french fries and fried chicken sandwhiches that are straight from above. We then walked around Nob Hill and watched the sunset from the tippy top. 

One of my coworkers lectures me almost every day, "enjoy this time of your life! you're young and you don't have kids and you will never get this time back! enjoy it!" 

It's a great reminder.

Really, life is certainly not perfect or even close. But these are really good days and I think of all my days of living, these are my favorite ones thus far.

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

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The coolest thing Mark Twain never said.

we could move to sausalito, livin is easy on a houseboat.

My dear friends Elder and Sister Bishop from my mission were in a town a few weeks ago. They were like my parents for the first 6 months of my mission and I really don't know if I could have done it without them. They were in the bay visiting their daughter and we were lucky enough to meet up with them for dinner in Sausalito! It was so great to catch up and see them. I'm so sad that we forgot to take a picture.

After dinner, Miles and I went down to the shore and walked through the neighborhoods of houseboats on the water. It takes a very unique person to want to live on the water, so it was no surprise that their houses were very quirky and unique as well! It was so fun to walk down the docks looking at each house because they all had some sort of theme to them.

My favorite was the victorian style house. Like really, who thinks to build that?

Afterwards we sat and watched the fog roll back in and take over the sky. That basically sums up every one of our summer nights these days.

santa cruz

We took care of all of our lame adult things like laundry and grocery shopping on Friday night (which can surprisingly be fun since being married), then on Saturday we took a day trip down to Santa Cruz! 

It was such a nice day. We explored Capitola, boogie boarded, laid on the beach, rode the chair lift at the boardwalk, ate great mexican food, watched the sunset, and ended the night with ice cream. 

We feel so lucky to live in a place where you can drive an hour in any direction and see something amazing. 

Is there anything prettier that then beach at sunset? I really don't think there is.