Weddings, Goodbyes, and New Adventures

Whew! What a whirlwind half a year it has been. I haven't posted in awhile. This is mostly due to the fact that I always want to post things in order and with lots of pictures which takes a lot of time and effort. So instead I just don't post. I hope to change that. We'll see how well it works. This post is very wordy. I will go back and add some pictures soon.

Last summer consisted of traveling to weddings, weddings and more weddings! Here is the run down:

May 2014: Melissa and Michael North got married in Indianapolis, IN! Melissa is a good friend of mine from college. It was probably one of the most heartfelt and touching ceremonies I have ever been too. I think we were all in tears! Congrats guys! We hope to visit soon!

June 7, 2014: Elizabeth and Nic Champagne got married in Dubuque, IA. Liz and I met marching drum corps in 2005. We were pretty much inseparable from the start. It has been a wild and fun 9 years! A highlight was definitely being her MO. Congrats!

June 14, 2014: Karen's Bachelorette part in Nashville, TN. What a fun trip. So happy I went! Shopping for cowboy boots, drinks in boots, line dancing, pedal pub...the list could go on and on! What a fun way to celebrate the end of Karen's single days!

June 21, 2014: Alyssa and Scotty Drumwright got married in Denver, CO. Scotty and Chase have been friend since high school. It was great to see all of his friends and celebrate Scotty and Alyssa! On this trip, we also got to go rock climbing in Golden, CO with our friend Darren. It was a blast!

June 28, 2014: The Champagne's visit the PNW! I believe this was the last adventure that I posted about.

July...I feel like I am missing some things in July. Oh well.

July 26, 2914: Maria and Marcus got married in Minneapolis, MN! Maria is a good friend from graduate school. It was so fun catching up with all of our friends from Minneapolis. We even got to go to a twins game!

Aug 2, 2014: Karen and Eric Eberly tied the knot in Dayton, OH! Chase and I were both so excited to stand up next to these two friends on their big day. What a fun time! Congrats!

Sept 12-14, 2014: I got to represent PNNL at the UMN career fair. The event was exhausting and not very fun to be honest. I basically just told undergrads about our internships all day. I wish I could have mentored each one because most of them were clueless, but I'm only one person. However, I did get a free trip to see my friends so I can't complain.

I'm sure some other stuff happened in September. I can't really remember at this point.

Oct 12, 2014: Our friends Allison and Elliot Singer were gracious enough to throw Chase a HUGE 30th birthday party in New Orleans, LA! Aren't they such great friends? There may have also been a beautiful Jewish wedding ceremony in there as well. It was our first traditional Jewish and New Orleans wedding. It was a great time!

So as you can see, we spent most of our summer and fall last year traveling all over the country! We had some amazing times and do not regret a second of it. I will say it is pretty exhausting traveling between the west coast and the midwest every other weekend!

On to the present. Chase and I MOVED in October to Royal Oak, Michigan. I FINALLY accepted a full time position at BorgWarner in Auburn Hills, MI. BorgWarner is a tier 1 automotive supplier. We design, develop and produce a boat load of different automotive parts and sell them to tier 1 OEMs like Ford, VW, etc. I specifically work in the friction material development group. Basically I design friction plates for clutch systems. I can probably answer a lot of your transmission questions now. I'm becoming something of an expert. It has been a blast! The company seems to be a great company to work for!

Chase got a job pretty much immediately after moving here! What a blessing! He is working for a RDA group, a market research company. He really likes it so far!

Life is good here in Michigan so far. We have already had lots of visits and events with friends! Liz and Nic, Karen and Eric, My parents, and Chase's parents have all already been to visit! It has been great to be able to get home to see my family in only 4 hrs. I have also reconnected with a high school friend, Jena! We have had a lot of fun times catching up!

That's all for now! Hopefully I will post again soon!

Portland, OR with the Champagne's!

I am going to take a break from posting about events that happened months ago and post about our most recent adventure! My best friend Liz travels to Portland for work a lot, and I have been lucky enough to go visit her a few times! Chase and I were already planning to head to Portland for the Sporting KC vs Portland Timbers game, so we planned a fun weekend with the Champagnes!

After a lovely (but terribly serviced) dinner at Rogue Public House, Chase and I headed to the game!

Finally a photo of Chase and I at a soccer game! We always forget to ask someone to take it. Too bad this one didn't get focused well, but it's not too bad at least.

The Portland Timbers have a very nice stadium. It used to be a minor league baseball stadium. The best part is that it is in the middle of the city!

Sporting KC supporters group! We wanted to get tickets with the supporters group, but they were all sold out when we tried to get them :( We did manage to get some seats just below them though. Luckily all of the Timbers fans around us were pretty nice even though we were decked out in SKC gear. Some of the MLS fans can get pretty rowdy.....

There is a lumber jack that roams the stands during the game as a "mascot." I didn't manage to get a good picture of him. I was happy the SKC won, but I did want to see him chop off a piece of the log! Apparently he does that for each goal the Timber score...we didn't get to see it!

I wish my gym had an open air area to watch live soccer.....

Chase and I had a great time at the game! After the game, we walked over to Deschutes Brewery to have a beer! Chase had not been there before and I wanted him to check it out!

Riding the tram up to the hospital!

Mr. and Mrs. Champagne!

We went to the coast Saturday afternoon. Our first stop was the Tillamook cheese factory. I forgot to take any pictures, but we had some delicious cheese samples and some ice cream! We decided to stay in Saturday night at our rental house and have wine, cheese, crackers and sausage for dinner. Delicious!

Haystack rock viewed from Ecola State Park

Ecola State Park

Love this photo! Caught the wave crashing through the rocks!

Sunday morning we got up and headed out quickly. We were headed up to Mount St. Helens National Monument Park. The Johnston Ridge Observatory was very nice! Unfortunately the mountain was shy and hiding behind the clouds

This valley is still largely barren from the destruction of the eruption of St. Helen's in 1980. 

Trippy trees. Looking at this tree line made me sick. It reminds me of one of those eye tricks. I think they look so weird because they are all roughly the same age, which isn't usually the case in a forest. They were all replanted in 1983 after the eruption took out a few hundred acres of trees.

The middle of this picture is the bottom of St Helens. I promise.

If I remember correctly from all the videos....these are Lupine flowers. They were the first sign of life on St Helens after the eruption.

After a lovely afternoon learning about St Helens, we headed back toward Portland. Liz wanted to take us to a great seafood restaurant just south of Portland that she had been too many times. It DID NOT disappoint. The food was AMAZING. Thanks for taking us Lizzie! As we left the restaurant, we noticed the clouds had cleared a ton. We RACED up to Washington Park to try and view the elusive mountains. We were successful! What a great way to end an amazing adventure with the best of friends! Can't wait for the next!

South side of Mount St Helens

Rose Garden

Mt Hood

Mt Hood. This one is my favorite!

WHO WANTS TO VISIT NEXT???

Ski Trip - February 2014

In early February, a large group of us headed towards Leavenworth and Stevens Pass for a ski weekend in the woods! We rented a cabin and did some skiing, hanging out, cooking, olympics watching, etc...

It was a great time! Here are a few pictures from the trip! Things to note: I didn't get a picture of the cabin, bummer. I also didn't get a group picture! Our group included Megan, Sean, Kelsey, Kit, Sonja, Huy, Liezel, Chase and myself. What a fun time!

Stevens Pass

Chase and I snowboarded again on this trip. I think this will be our last snowboarding trip. We aren't very good at it. I think since we both like to cross-country ski, next time we will attempt downhill skiing. :)

Lunch and beers at the lodge. Counter-clockwise: Megan, Liezel, Huy, Chase, Deanna, and Sean

Before we headed home, Chase and I went to Lake Wenatchee State Park! We really wanted to cross-country ski, but the ski report wasn't very good so we didn't make the trek into town to rent skis for me. We were pretty bummed we didn't though cause the snow looked great! We hiked around on the snowshoe trails anyway. This worked out pretty well on the well travel parts of the trail where the snow was packed down pretty well. However, we quickly ran into deep drifts of snow!

Chase testing the limits of the ice.....eek!

Snow covered Lake Wenatchee

Knee deep snow...

We had a great time on our ski trip adventure! We are so lucky to have such great company here in the Tri-Cities!