Cannon Beach

At the beginning of the month I was able to take a vacation to Cannon Beach! It is one of my most favorite places to visit! In fact, it is probably my most favorite place, but I still have a lot of the world left to see.

So, I planned this trip well in advance. I had never gone to Cannon Beach on my own, always with my family. Anthony was able to come with me. I made my reservation knowing that I would be going no matter what! Even if that meant alone. I hadn't been to the beach in a few years and I was done waiting! So, luckily, he was able to get it off. I was also coming by a new route than our traditional family route, so there was a lot to figure out! First off, I knew I would be going through Portland to get to the coast, so I planned time to stop and hike Multnomah Falls. It was gorgeous and sunny for the hike!




After the hike, we continued to lunch. Now, I love Godfather's pizza, and there are some in Portland! In my planning, I found one by the highway. It had a lunch buffet and taco pizza! I was so excited for my favorite pizza. I asked the lady if she could make it for the buffet and she said sure! So I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I asked her about the "taco pizza" and she asked, "beef?" I said yes, the beef because I remember them having a chicken taco. She felt bad about me waiting so she said she would make a pizza and bring it to my table. By the time she brought the pizza, I had been in the restaurant for way too long. I was still excited and she brought......la ground beef pizza. Sigh....I don't know what happened, but me and that godfather's taco pizza I wanted were never meant to be. The pizza she gave us was free though and tasted good! So, we got back on the road...



When we arrived at the beach is was beautiful, sunny, and warm for the time of year! It was so great! We checked into our cabin and hit the beach right away! Now, the cabin was great except for one incident. On day two, I was putting my beach clothes back on. Looking into the mirror before heading out I saw, to my upmost horror, a huge spider crawling over the top of the hood on my head! I screamed like I didn't know I could scream! Anthony got it off and then I asked for pictures to ID it later. I found out that it was just a harmless crawl space spider...hackled band weaver I believe is the name.



During the stay at the beach, some of my favorite things to do were seeing the tidal pools, walking the beach, watching the sunset with a campfire, and making a sand castle. The only downside the the vacation is that I somehow hurt my foot. It just began hurting and eventually bruised up. The pain got so bad that, by the drive home, I couldn't walk in a rest stop without wanting to cry...I got very close. It has been almost a month and it is almost all better. Well, I will just put some pictures that I liked below. I think those are the fun parts of blogs anyways!

Grad School

Homework - Aren't I supposed to assign it, but not do it as a teacher? =P

I like learning, but it is hard to keep up with it while working out of the undergrad college scene. In fact, one of my first major grad school assignments was sooo hard. It took me hours of reading and hours of work to complete the project. I took some pictures for you:





Hehe, okay, I am getting a Master's in Literacy, so I have to read and keep up with Children's literature. I have several new books to read and we do different kinds of books reports as we would want our students to do them. It is always good to do something first yourself before you ask someone else to do it. It actually took longer to do this than if I just typed about the book. And I really do recommenced this book! IT was such a good read for adults too. The book I read was the new Newbery Award winner, "Moon Over Manifest."

Now, that was fun, but I really do read textbooks and write big papers too. I took photos of those to prove it:

Hiking

I have kind of fallen off the blog challenge. I just haven't had time at a computer! I am home this morning so that I can do laundry and catch up on items here. I thought I would do an update too since there is no pressing homework or anything else today. With my keeping busy, I am trying hard to get healthy again. I have been working out at a gym for 6 months now and paying attention to my eating. I have put on a lot of new muscle. It is frustrating when I see other people loose weight more quickly than me, but I am trying to remind myself that it was 2 years of weight gain - give it two years to come off healthily. I don't want a quick-fix where it bounces right back on. I want to get healthy and stay there. It is still hard because the scale has gone down and back up within a 10 pound frame and I am actually at a weight I began at. What is more important though is all the muscle I see it my arms, legs, and elsewhere. I have leaned out too. Inches and body fat are way more important to me than a scale number. I would just forgo the scale weigh-ins, but I like to see how I am doing there too. Hmmm, maybe I just shouldn't check until the spring? Anyway, I have picked back up into my pre-holiday routine of hiking on Saturdays. It is a great workout and way to hang out with friends. The last two weekends I hiked with Melissa and Anthony. Here are some photos:

Blog Challenge Day 6

Your Day

Today was a Sunday. I slept in late because I have had a really long week. My normal Sunday would start with church and a walk, but every now and then I just need to sleep until I wake up. I had a planned brunch with Anthony, so I went to his house this morning and we made a delicious brunch of sausage, eggs, hashbrowns, pancakes, and grapefruit. I wanted to spend the day with my family though because this new schedule has me going opposite hours of them. I wake up about when or right after the first crew leaves the house. I often don't come home until most folks are asleep in bed. I was going to go shopping with my Mom and make dinner for the family, but that didn't quite work out. Mom went with Dad to the store and they picked up items for hamburgers for dinner. So, I spent my afternoon finishing homework. I like being a student again, but it is sure a lot of reading! I help Dad make the hamburgers for dinner this evening. I also did laundry, cleaned, and worked on the blog here. It was a pretty productive Sunday overall while still being relaxing. I still have to make my bed and get the last load of laundry from the dryer here in a bit, but it is late so I will be hitting the sack soon! (I hope - please be dry my sheets and clothes...)

The picture is of the textbook I spent a few hours with today.

Blog Challenge Day 5

What is my definition of love?

I think there are many different kinds of love, but at its most basic, I define love as "deeply caring and connecting." People love our planet; I love the ocean - I feel a connection to it. I love people I haven't even met in terms of caring about the world and people being treated well. This is different in a sense though to loving people you are close to. Love for the ocean and love for a person are similar in the fact that you both care and/or connect with them. The difference to me is the amount of emotional bonding we have to those close to us. When we love someone close to us, we connect and care even more some how. All in all, I think it is kind of mysterious too. I recently saw an episode of Bones where they explained love coming from a part of the brain. It is all kind of fascinating really. Anyway, those are my current thoughts on love.

Blog Challenge Day 4

Food - oh, these challenge makers know what I like! I love food! (Probably more than I should) Anyway, well, I had a weird day in terms of food. I slept in too late so I had a few peanut butter M & m's for breakfast. I had an afternoon sub job at a high school for a photography class, so I ate an early lunch, so it was more brunch, of the new canned lasagna. It is okay stuff when in a pinch. After subbing, I hurried over to the next city to go teach my orchestra. It was 4:00 when that was done and I headed to flute lessons. Those don't get done until after the normal dinner hour, so I had a peanut butter bar as a snack. After lessons I met up with Anthony where I had one of those fun dinners; a little of this, a little of that. I had a left over enchilada, salad, chicken nuggets, and chips with pico de gallo. Then, for dessert, three chips o'hoy cookies. So, that was my day in food! =)

Blog Challenge Day 3

The challenge for day 3 is about parents.

Parent:

* a father or mother; one who begets or one who gives birth to or nurtures and raises a child; a relative who plays the role of guardian
* rear: bring up; "raise a family"; "bring up children"
* an organism (plant or animal) from which younger ones are obtained

That is the definition of parent that came up on the web. I think there are many types of parents and many different people who fulfill those roles in our own unique lives. I am going to talk about my Mommy and Daddy though as I think the challenge is implying us to do. My parents are pretty great people. They are both very giving to their children. They have helped me out a lot recently in bad times for me by giving me a place to live back home again along with my kitties. Their cat still isn't sure about the arrangement though. I thought a story about the other night would do well to give an example about how my parents can be great. My car overheated for the first time. I had work done on it the previous day too, which seems to be the cause....grrrr... I told my Dad what happened when a friend gave me a ride home. I wanted to let him know the situation and that I was going to need to figure out car rides in the morning; it was already late. He stopped what he was doing and wanted to try and fix it then and there. So, we drove to my car, took a look, and saw that the it was probably the coolant. We went to the store, got supplies, and came back to the car. During this trip he told me he had to study for a test tomorrow still. I told him that if he had a big test, I could probably find a ride instead. He kept working and we got the car running and back home. All was good and I was able to drive to all my appointments yesterday! So, that is just an example of one time out of many that my parents will step in to help their kids. So, yeah, pretty great parents!