Mark + Heather

Another Saturday goes by...

2010-04-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

Heather and I woke up early on Saturday, despite staying up really late the night before. Reason? Heather really wanted to get this papasan chair that she found on Craigslist. So we went and got that, a nice extra chair for the money. Then we came back and made breakfast for everybody (including Ashleigh's friend Audra who arrived Friday night, visiting from Indiana, and our friend Dan, who spent the night on the couch).

Then we headed into town with Heather's friend Heather so that they could turn in some artwork to this art project they are involved with. It's called Art In Hand: Portland, check it out: http://www.artinhandcards.com/portland-project.html. We were also going to go to Portland's Saturday Market (which is a good time), but we didn't make it there in time. Then, Heather and I went to a music festival at a local college. We didn't stay for the whole festival, but what we saw of it was really fun.

Anyways, that's the most excitement we've had in one day for a while. Here's some photos!

Portland's tallest building (it would look short in Chicago or NYC).

A street in the Pearl District, including the famous "Go By Streetcar" sign.

The two Heathers "hero pose" with their works of art.

A marsh in a park in the Pearl District.

A Pearl District sculpture.

The end of Saturday Market for the day...we missed it by about half an hour.

Me at the music festival.

San Francisco Trip!

2010-03-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures from our trip to the wonderful city of San Francisco! It was a fun, though sometimes terrifying, drive through the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, and Northern California. In SF Heather went to the Game Developer's Conference to get some career advice as well as talk to some people within the game industry. And we both got to explore a little of SF, though not as much as we would have liked to since we were only there for three days.

Driving towards Mt. Shasta in Northern CA

Another view of Shasta

Us in front of Mt. Shasta

A "Mark" smile

Hills of NorCal

More Shasta, with hat.

View of Shasta from inside the car.

"Artsy" shot.

Panorama of SF skyline from one of the piers. Click to make it huge!!

Top of Lombard St. (the crazy winding street)

View from bottom of Coit Tower.

Another view from bottom of Coit Tower.

Coit Tower.

Heather, enjoying the sun.

Another view of Lombard St. hill.

The city.

A pier.

Crazy sculpture at EMB.

Heather saying "come down from there, young man!"

Another view of the sculpture.

Moscone Center, home of GDC '10.

Those sure are some trees!

I'll say! Have you ever seen something that is so much like a tree?

What do you think, Heather? Aren't these trees?

"They are definitely trees, one might say."

(Trees appear courtesy of John Muir Redwood Forest)

Golden Gate panorama! Click to see it huge!!

I love this city

2010-02-05T16:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick update on stuff and a couple of pictures.

We're settling into the new apartment. We're slowly unpacking the few boxes that we haven't gotten to yet. It's really weird having so much extra space. We almost don't know what to do with it. Almost.

It's been pretty warm here this past week. It really does rain here a lot, but there are nice days scattered here and there. Today was one of those days. It was mostly sunny all day and in the low 50s. Great day for a bike ride!

So I took a break from working on websites and decided to check out this state park that's really near our apartment. I'm really good at fooling myself into thinking I'm in better shape than I really am. It's called Rocky Butte State Park and it's a volcanic cinder cone. Which means it's really tall. And really steep. Well, I made it about a quarter of the way up before deciding to walk. Coming down was really fun though. Every time I go someplace with a vantage point like that and look over the city and see all the mountain peaks in the distance and tree lined hills, I'm overcome with the feeling of how much I really love it here. If I could just land a decent job then it really will be like living our dream here. It's a beautiful city with so much to do.

Edward and I hanging out in my workspace. He was consulting me on proper CSS techniques.

Here's one of the view from atop Rocky Butte. Mt. Hood looks so much bigger in real life. It's really weird staring at it for a while. Being from Indiana, my eyes are not used to focusing on something so far away, at all.

New apartment!

2010-02-01T20:01:00.000-08:00

Another update! Finally! Here's some pictures of our new place. We really like the area, it's not too far for Heather or Ashleigh to get to work, and there's tons of stuff to do nearby. The pictures are cell phone pictures, so they're a little grainy. Both cameras are dead and I can't find the chargers for either! As you can probably tell in the pictures..we still have a lot of unpacking, sorting, and settling in left to do.

Our kitchen, complete with fridge letters.

Our "dining room" complete with Master Chief.

Breakfast nook / bike hideout.

View into the living room. Balcony door is on the left. This is the largest remainder of un-unpacked boxes left in the apartment. I think.

Our living room, featuring new TV courtesy of Heather's brother.

TV and fireplace view.

Available couch seating situation view.

Bathroom (only one: a small sacrifice for the spaciousness of this apartment).

Bedroom.

Journey up the stairs into the "cat loft". Actually it's the office/music space area..the cats just also seem to love it up here.

Ashleigh's nook.

Heather's work space.

Into the "man cave".

It's not really a "man cave", it's just a space for my music stuff (which isn't here at the moment).

Another view of the music space.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone!

For New Year's Eve Heather, Kreg, and I went to an Irish pub near our new apartment. There was a live band playing all night. They were called Funk Shui and they played some awesome funk music. We had a good time, and rode the crowded MAX home.

Kreg contemplates the Irish-ness of the pub

Group photo!

Kreg is in town / Snowpocalypse 2009

2009-12-30T16:48:00.000-08:00

Kreg got here late on Christmas day and has been hanging out ever since. I've been showing him some of the sights around town, we played some video games, etc. He said he's a lot less bored here than he would be at home. Which I guess is good because I was very worried that he would be bored stiff here.

Yesterday we went into town to run some errands, including dropping off applications for a new apartment! While we were in town it started to snow a little bit, to which we said "Hooray! Snow!" and proceeded to not think much about. Then it just kept coming down. And coming down. And we headed home! Highway 26 was full of cars just sitting there, going nowhere. So we tried to go home via Burnside Street, which snakes its way up the West Hills and is usually less crowded than 26. However, the traffic on Burnside was barely moving as well. We made it a good distance up the hill, inch by inch, but the conditions were continually getting worse. By the time we could really start moving we couldn't get enough traction to go anywhere. So we parked the car in a parking lot right off the street and walked back into town. We caught the MAX to a friend's house where we were going to spend the night. However, we decided that if the MAX was still running we may as well make the trek back to our apartment. So we did, and it wasn't too bad. Overall it was an adventure. The most surprising thing was that the total amount of snow was maybe three inches but it completely shut the city down. There are a total of three snowplows in the city, I believe, and they are ill-equipped to deal with any amount of snow accumulation. I guess this only happens about once a year though, and some years there is no snow at all. It was a bizarre situation though, since in the Midwest that amount of snow wouldn't have kept anyone home. Here, however, it made for a crazy night of adventure.

View from Pittock Mansion

Kreg is kind of hood with Mt. Hood in the background.

This is when we were actually excited about the snow.

The best part of the snow storm though? All of the snow is gone now. It got up to nearly 50 degrees today and melted all of the snow away. So life is back to normal, at least until the snow strikes again.

Christmas!

2009-12-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We just hung out around the apartment. We had some friends over, made a ton of food, ate until we were stuffed, and played some games trying to slip into food comas. It was a pretty good holiday, but we definitely missed our family a lot!

I picked Kreg up from the airport last night. He is staying here for a little over a week, so it should be a lot of fun. I'll be sure to post some pictures of our adventures while he is here.

Sorry for the lack of updates, one of my New Year's resolutions is to update more frequently!

Heather and Heather's creations in progress during one of our "Craft Nights".

Here's a good Mt. Hood picture. We had bright sunny skies for Christmas.

Here is our tiny Christmas tree!

Here we are opening gifts on Christmas morning.

Edward is enjoying his Christmas present, the morning after Christmas.

A Very Mark + Heather Christmas!

2009-11-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

This may be a bit early for some of you, but we think it's perfect timing. We made a short Christmas album for you to listen to!

It's called A Very Mark + Heather Christmas! and here is the track listing:

1. White Christmas
2. Silent Night
3. The First Noel
4. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
5. I'll Be Home For Christmas
6. Come Thou Fount (not technically a Christmas song, but Heather really likes it!)

> DOWNLOAD IT!

Heather sang, played the jingle bells, and professionally whistled (dedicated to Kreg). I played guitar, keyboard, hit a drum and tambourine, sang, and tried to play the recorder. Edward did some guest meows on "White Christmas".

Laura is here!

2009-11-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

Laura used a "buddy pass" from the airline David works at to come out here and visit Heather and I. Heather has been working all weekend, so it's mostly been me showing Laura around the city. Yesterday I took the max out to the airport to meet her. It started pouring down rain as we headed west on the max. We stopped downtown and ate at Cha! Cha! Cha!, an amazing Mexican restaurant. We also went into Powell's books, Laura seemed really impressed by their huge book selection. It's a really amazing store, a full city block of books. We decided against more adventuring, since we were getting pretty wet and Laura still had her bags with her. When Heather got off work we went out and ate pizza at Extreme Pizza, a west coast chain that has some really awesome specialty pizzas.

Today Laura and I headed into town again. We "climbed" Mt. Tabor, Portland's resident inactive volcano. "Climbed" really just means walked up a whole lot of stairs. The view from the top was stunning, we could see the whole close-in east side, as well as downtown on the other side of the Willamette. The day was way too overcast to see Mt. Hood, but it is visible from the peak of Mt. Tabor when the weather is clear. After descending Mt. Tabor we walked through the Hawthorne district and got some coffee. Then we headed back downtown and saw this crazy performance art play in Pioneer Square. We watched it for a few minutes before a girl came up to us and gave us some information. The play was actually based on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which made a little more sense than we had thought from first observation. After that we took the streetcar through the Pearl District, doing the full northern loop before getting back on the max and heading back to my apartment. It was a pretty big adventure, and I think Laura got a pretty good feel for the city.

The ascent of Mt. Tabor.

The peak of Mt. Tabor. On a clear day you would be able to see Mt. Hood behind this bench.

View of east side + downtown from Mt. Tabor.

Statue on top of Mt. Tabor.

Laura, waiting on the bus.

Weird Berlin Wall performance art play.

Cool sign in Pioneer Square.

Panorama of the NW Fremont Bridge.

And now it's November!

2009-11-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

The end of the year is upon, which means time is going to start flying. This has been an exciting year, especially since August. We're having fun here, making friends, and slowly starting to get on our feet.

Heather has been reading a lot of information about breaking into the game art field and has been working towards her goal of creating video games. She is still enjoying work at AIU as well, though she has said the weekend schedule is starting to get to her a little bit. It is tough for her to hang out with people on the weekends due to her schedule. It will probably change, at least a little, at the beginning of next year.

I am now employed at Old Navy part-time. They hired me to help with the shipments which means I am going to have to be there early on days I work, 5am to be exact. This will be tough, but they are only five hour shifts. Hopefully they will start giving me more hours as we get closer to the holiday season. My internship is also going well, I've had some work to do this week and I think it is just going to snowball from here. My boss there told me about this challenge to write a novel in the month of November, which I am going to try to do. Also, my musical project is slowly starting to come together. So these next couple of months will most likely be very busy for me, in contrast to the relative boredom of the past three months. I am glad that things are starting to pick up though!

For Halloween Heather and I went with one of her friends on a "Zombie Crawl". This just means that we dressed up as zombies and walked around town. It was really funny to see this huge group of people dressed as zombies staggering down the street. We swarmed around some people in a car at a stoplight as we were crossing the street and surrounded a small coffee drive-thru shop. The people in the car and the guy working at the coffee shop certainly had a surreal night on account of us. It was a lot of fun.

This first picture is a little graphic!

It's fake blood, no cats were harmed (just annoyed). This was after getting home from the zombie crawl, I acted as through I were eating Edward.

November greeted us with some heavy fog.

Visibility was very limited.

The two furthest windows are ours!

Here is Heather, going into work.

We miss everyone!

Nearly 3 months in Portland...

2009-10-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

I was talking to my mom today and we both realized Heather and I have been living here for nearly 3 months. It seems like it hasn't been that long. At the same time it feels like we've been here for a long time. This place feels so welcoming and home-like to me, and I think Heather feels the same way. The worst part is not being able to see our family and friends back in Indiana and Missouri as easily as we would like to.

Heather is working hard at AIU. She enjoys it there and feels very fortunate to have landed the job. She talks to me sometimes about the office gossip and drama and the hilarity of it all. She's doing a great job being a positive person on her work team and not getting caught up in that stuff.

I just had a second interview at Old Navy today. It's a part-time restocking position, not a whole lot of hours to begin with. It's a start though, it's income and I need a source of that badly!

I've also started my internship at Awaken Consciousness, a local life coaching business. However, the owner has formulated a plan to change the name of the company, which means my work has been on hiatus this week. The good news is that the rest of the interns and I will have a lot of work to do when the name change is finalized. My role on the team is mostly web design and updates, along with some graphic design tasks. Our team of interns are basically a small marketing group helping the owner of the company get more clients and traffic. It's been fun so far, brainstorming with the team to create marketing strategies and ideas, as well as developing campaign ideas.

In other news, I met some guys around town and we've started a musical project. It's really fun because we are all into some of the same music, but have dissimilar enough tastes to not be boring! So far we've gotten together a couple of times, jammed together once, and it feels really promising. I'm really excited to finally be doing something with music again.

Here's a picture taken out of the bedroom window (hence the screen pattern I didn't notice!) of a rainbow. The rainbow was closer than I've ever seen one. It seriously seemed to end almost right across the street. The picture really doesn't do it any justice.

It's Mid-October Already?

2009-10-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go?

Heather is enjoying her job at AIU, an online college. Her schedule is a little weird, she works Friday through Monday, ten hour work days. This is cool though because it means she gets Tuesday through Thursday off work. Three day "weekends" every week. It's a little weird doing weekend stuff in the middle of the week, but it works out pretty well.

I had two interviews this week. One was for Noodles & Co., a part-time kitchen position. The other was for a graphic design internship with a local self-help guru that needs help building her business identity. If things work out that means I should be making money to pay the bills while getting some experience that will help me get my career started. I should know what's going on either by the end of the week or by the beginning of next week. I'm really hopeful that things are going to work out!

In other news, I met some fellow songwriter/musicians that are interested in starting a new musical project. We got together last night for the first time and chatted about our ideas and interests. We're having a jam/writing session on Saturday to see how well we work together. Judging from the meeting last night I think things will go well, I'm very excited to be doing something with music!

Here's some pictures:

Edward, sleeping on the bed. Heather tucked him in.

Walking back from the 7-11. There's some fall colors, but it was pretty dreary today.

We miss everyone, and we hope that we're able to see people over the holidays. Hopefully the job situation will improve very very soon here so that we can start thinking about making plans.

Laurelhurst Park Adventure

2009-10-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Heather and I went into the city to meet some new friends. We had a little bit of time to kill before we met up with them and we were driving past this nice little park. So we decided to stop and walk around.

There was a pond there.

The pond contained ducks.

Here's a sign some kids made to protect the pond.

There was an island with a willow tree.

There were geese.

Ducks behind bars.

Trees!

More geese!

So many birds.

There were spiders, too.

It was a really pretty walk.

The other side of willow tree island.

There was Heather.

And there was me.

THE END.

Much needed update!

2009-10-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I have updated this. Sorry about that! I will try not to go so long without any pictures.

It's hard to believe we have been in Oregon for over two months now! Heather is now employed by AIU Online, an online college. She likes her job, and it is really close to our apartment. I, however, am still looking for work. I've been applying to places, trying to get some leads, and trying not to be too disheartened.

We've done some exploring of the city, and found lots of things we would like to do. It's just a matter of me finding a job so that we will have money to do these things. We've been getting by just fine though.

I don't think either of us have gotten homesick. I just miss people, my family and friends. But we love the area, I think we're going to be here for a while.

Here's an awesome shirt we got Kreg for his birthday at a thrift shop! (Just kidding Kreg!)

Obligatory sunset picture.

Heather playing DDR with a new friend at Ground Kontrol.

Hey Kreg, what's up?

I didn't know Dad made wine!

This kitty with a funny name is missing! :(

Obligatory moonrise photo (out of the bedroom window)

All of these people are here to watch approximately 2.7 million birds squeeze into a chimney.

Carlie and Ashleigh are here to see some birds too.

This is the chimney.

In this photo you can see about 0.01% of the birds actually there.

Here's a way-too-up-close-and-personal photo of me.

It's like a tornado of birds!

Sasha and Ella chilling in the living room.

Our room, view 1. (it's always this messy)

Our room, view 2.

This is what most of Edward's day consists of.

Heather making a face.

Heather, talking to her dad outside of Ground Kontrol.

Modest Mouse!

Adventure into the city

2009-08-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos from our adventure into the city today. We went to Washington Park and checked out one of the many rose gardens of the city. The view of the city from the park was really nice, and these pictures do no justice. We could barely see Mt. Hood in distance, which I thought was cool, but it's invisible in any of the pictures.

This would be a great place to take people who visit, very scenic and touristy.

Walking down to the garden, city visible in the background.

A rose.

These trees are tall.

And huge.

If you squint you can almost see Mt. Hood above the tallest building.

Heather always takes awkward pictures of me. (Waiting on the bus)

We thought this building looked cool, covered in scaffolding. (In Goose Hollow neighborhood)

We spied a baseball game in PGE Park.

Everything is going well with us. We really love the area and the people are very nice here. We're still searching diligently for employment, hoping we can just find something to pay the bills and ride out the economy. It's kind of scary, but we've only been here for two weeks now. More news later!

Pictures of the outside of our apartment

2009-08-13T10:20:00.001-07:00

I realized we never actually posted pictures of what the outside of the apartment looks like. Thought this might be interesting to some.

Sorry that we haven't been updating very frequently. We both came down with weird colds this week and have been taking it easy trying to get over our sicknesses.

Our first few days in Portland

2009-08-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a big photo update of our first few days here. (The photos that are really poor quality were taken with my phone's camera)

Monday (August 3rd):
We started unpacking stuff early in the morning. We have a lot of stuff and a lot of work ahead of us. It's just now looking a lot better, but we still could use some more space.

Hopefully this is a "before" picture.

Our kitchen, still in boxes.

The "music area," still a mess.

Then, once Kreg and dad were ready to go, we had to take the truck back. This proved to be one of the most frustrating parts of the whole trip for them (and us). We had to refill the truck's gas tank, and there were no gas stations near the office where we had to drop it off. Kreg thought dad hit a little kid (which was not even close to reality, fortunately!), dad thought he was going to wreck the truck, and we sat and waited at the office wondering what was going on. We survived, however, and it's almost humorous now.

The drop-off place.

Heather is frustrated.

Later that evening we drove dad and Kreg downtown to their hotel. At this point I decided I would never like to drive downtown here again.

View from dad's hotel room.

Tuesday (August 4th):

Kreg decided to spend the night at our apartment, not dad's hotel room. We had a "roommate night + Kreg," hung out and watched a movie.

Here he is admiring some kitchenware.

Ashleigh, Master Chief, and Heather.

We decided to take the MAX into town to meet back up with dad. There is a "park & ride" right down the street from our apartment, making a trip on the MAX really convenient. It's about a 20min drive if we decided not to drive to the transit center.

This is 26, the highway we are avoiding taking by riding the MAX.

Kreg enjoys the MAX.

We met up with dad and explored the downtown area. We saw downtown, the Pearl district, the waterfront, and old town. It was a fun day.

View of the waterfront.

We left dad and Kreg at the train station and made our way back to our apartment. We were sad to see them leave, and I think they were very sad to leave. It was a very exhausting day with a great deal of walking in the hot sun.

Wednesday (August 5th):

On Wednesday we spent the morning trying to get our internet situation up and running. We succeeded in getting wireless set up in the apartment, but not hard-wiring our desktops.

Hanging out on the futon.

We switched places at some point.

Carlie and Ashleigh wanted to check out the transit system and check out the Hawthorne district, so we went with them for a "roommate's night out" of sorts.

Our train stop.

Inside the MAX. It's very clean and fast.

In the Hawthorne district we tried Bridgeport Ale House.

Carlie and Heather look thrilled to have their picture taken.

Thursday (August 6th):

We went downtown to sign up for some employment agencies. We were told we should just apply online. That was okay, but we could have saved a trip had we known. I didn't mind though, spending time in town is really fun.

Heather's computer area is almost set up. Edward is looking over her shoulder.

So far we really like it here! As soon as we get jobs we will not feel like we have to worry so much.

Day 4: Boise, ID to Portland, OR

2009-08-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

We finally have internet at the apartment, but no router. So I'm finally updating the blog with pictures from the trip.

The last day of the trip (Sunday, August 2nd) started in our hotel room in Boise, ID and ended in our new apartment in Portland, OR. There's a lot of pretty terrain in Oregon, but there's some flat, wide-open, boring spaces as well. The drive was shorter than some of our other drives and the most stressful part was navigating Portland traffic. We survived (including dad and Kreg in the truck, thankfully!) and moved all of our stuff in. Unpacking is another story completely.

Edward!

Kreg is super-psyched to ride with dad again today.

Heather: ruining photos since 1985.

Someone at the hotel was going the opposite direction.

An oasis.

Huge.

Chihuahua stopping for gas.

Gas station.

Dad can't pump gas in Oregon. No one can. (Except people that work at gas stations)

Abandoned something or other.

You can feel the speed in this photo.

Trees appear again.

Trains as well.

There's no signpost here, just a tree.

The Columbia River. We spent a lot of the drive next to this river.

Mimicking an Edward face.

This river is huge!

Wind farms!

Kreg.

An observatory atop the bluffs.

Portland, finally.

We survived driving through town, amazingly.

After arriving at our apartment we unloaded the truck, with the help of our roommates, then relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Day 3: Cheyenne, WY to Boise, ID

2009-08-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

Today has been the craziest day of all. From Cheyenne the terrain became more and more magnificent and beautiful as we crossed mountain ranges, journeyed through valleys, and saw amazing rock formations. We covered a lot of ground today and were in the car for 13 hours. However, my mom got us great hotel reservations in Boise, ID and we are all going to relax, sleep well, and get an early start for Portland tomorrow.

Wyoming photos:

Dad and Kreg hang out in our hotel room in Cheyenne.

Edward kept waking Heather and I up with his yowling.

Early morning, Cheyenne truck stop.

Mountains?

Mountains!

We saw a lot of wind farms today!

Dad and Kreg: middle of nowhere, WY.

Utah photos:

Heather, dad, and Kreg at a rest stop in Utah.

Heather, being cute.

Almost to Idaho...

I'm very tired, everyone else is already asleep. I'm definitely looking forward to a shorter driving day tomorrow. I'm also greatly anticipating our arrival in Portland.

Day 2: Rushville, MO to Cheyenne, WY

2009-08-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

On the second day of our trip we left Heather's dad's house in Rushville, MO and headed out onto the open road to travel to Cheyenne, WY. We calculated this to be another 10 hour day but it somehow stretched into a 12 hour day. We took a victory lap around Lincoln, NE (don't ask dad about that one) and had other small misadventures. Overall the day was exciting, however, as we all ventured into territory none of us had ever seen before.

Getting ready to leave Heather's dad's house.

Heather and her dad say their goodbyes. (Heather tells me to put the camera away).

Kreg discovers a niche market in Lincoln, NE.

Edward naps in the passenger seat.

Nebraska.

Nebraska gets an "Ohio Minus" from Kreg.

I've eaten way too much candy on this trip.

Neeeebbbbbbrrrrrrrrrraaaaassssskkkkakaaaaaahhhh!!!

Heather's car thingy hangs out.

Shades and sideburns.

Nebraska never ends, it just loops infinitely.

Things got interesting when we went through this enormous, but brief, storm system.

Five minutes later it is sunny again. Also, the terrain is changing.

West Nebraska.

Day 1: Lafayette, IN to Rushville, MO

2009-08-01T23:05:00.001-07:00

We started day one (Thursday, July 30th) of our drive in Lafayette, IN. We left around 10am, a little later than we hoped to. Heather and I said goodbye to mom, who was sad to see us leave. Our destination for the first day was Heather's dad's house in Rushville, MO. We quickly discovered that the truck could not exceed 65mph and we spent the first day hovering around 60mph to conserve fuel. Because of this the first day's journey ended up taking 10 hours instead of the usual 8 hours it takes Heather and I to make the trip. When we arrived in Rushville, Heather's dad, John, and step-mom, Michelle, fed us wonderful food and made us feel at home (as they always do). We decided to spend an extra day to venture the rest of the way to Portland, turning our 3 day trip into a 4 day trip. In retrospect this was an excellent decision.

Dad, proud of his truck packing skills.

Mom and Heather discussing the trip.

Here we are, ready to leave.

How Heather and Edward have been situated for most of the trip.

Edward is tripping on kitty tranqs.

Driving the truck through Illinois.

Entering Missouri by crossing the Mississippi River. Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, MO is on the other side.

Heather and Edward are not having fun at this picnic.

Mom sent us a lot of clementine oranges.

Missouri: The "I'll put my lawn chair wherever I please" state.

Heather videoing stuff at her dad's house.

Heather, her dad (John), and step-mom (Michelle).

Kreg and dad hang out and watch the sheep.

John tests the electric fence. Heather documents.

The sun sets on the sheep.

Loading up the moving truck

2009-08-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday (July 29th) we finished packing our belongings and loaded them into the moving truck. This was a lot of hard work, but we were pleased with our efforts at the end of the day. My mom took the day off work to help us, which we greatly appreciated, and my dad and Kreg helped as well. The stress of loading up the truck quickly turned to excitement of the adventure that lay ahead of us.

These pictures are from Wednesday:

Edward lazes around Heather's room, not even offering to help.

Last view of my old room at my old apartment.

Heather, Carlie, and Kreg checking out Kreg's old room.

Here's Heather rocking out on a keyboard while we were loading up the truck.

The alphabet magnets are traveling to Portland!

Kreg takes the bike belonging to our future roommate, Carlie, for a spin: to make sure he approves.

My dad uses his Tetris skills to load up the truck.

Heather blinds herself walking out into the sun with her sunglasses on her head. Kreg can't see anything in the garage with his sunglasses on.

Dad and I have fun loading the nonbreakable items.

Heather collects some weird stuff.

The start of an adventure

2009-07-28T18:06:00.001-07:00

Welcome to our new blog. This is the view in Heather's room as she frantically packs her stuff into boxes. We are loading up the truck tomorrow morning and we are both feeling the stress of trying to be ready on time. We're leaving on Thursday, and we are both very excited. However, we can't wait to be done with the hassle of getting ready. We will be much more relaxed once we have everything in the truck and are on the road.