Life Actually

And the best part is....

2007-01-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

They cancelled school tomorrow too!

This is our Snowman!

Snow Day

2007-01-16T18:54:00.000-08:00

My Dad... building our snowman this afternoon!

Home Cozy Home...

2007-01-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

My house under the three inches of snow that fell this morning!

Nite Out!

2007-01-16T18:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks L! The belt is killer!

Warm!!!

2007-01-09T19:28:00.000-08:00

Laurel, this is in your honor... actually, you might also be the only one who reads this anymore... But, back to the point! I finally caved and made myself some leg warmers. This is the third pair I've made and the easiest yet, and I LOVE them. They are so warm and cozy and I wear them even under my jeans so I'm the only one who knows they're there... but there they are... keeping me warm and cozy! Brilliant idea sister!

Cat Boy

2007-01-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

I always knew my boyfriend was a little weird. I always knew he loved cats. What didn't realize was that he is actually a crazy cat boy. After telling me that barn cats are the world's happiest cats, he petted the weird cat that couldn't pull it's tongue into it's mouth, then marveled at the boldness of the cats walking brazenly across the riding ring... and finally, found these two, who after cleaning each other, curled up to nap together. I thought we were there to watch Tate and the horses???

ihorse

2007-01-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

Thomas and I are walking the mini horses. Thomas has Harry Trotter and I have Toby. Toby likes to bite... alot. So periodically, Toby would take off running, forcing me to jog with him, and then he'd slow down so he was just a littel behind me and reach over to nip my leg. According to Tate this is play behavior and means he's having a darn good time. Luckily, i was wearing long underwear and my pants just slid away from my leg between his teeth... BAD TOBY!!!

Horses

2006-12-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

Tate and the mini horses, Toby and Harry Trotter

Christmas outside the Beltway

2006-12-29T17:24:00.000-08:00

Christmas Dinner... English Style

Have you seen????

2006-02-27T23:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.dresskevin.com/

Seriously, copy it, paste it, google it, then contemplate it. This guy "couldn't decide what to wear" so "you pick." Is this a commentary on our times? I knew when Paris Hilton made it big we were slipping from the ranks of the "tasteful" countries, but when a guy is literally willing to wear whatever others pick out for him, what does that say about fashion cool in our country? Peer pressure has become an internet business... I'm not kidding. He has advertisers on his site.

Or is it more insidious than that? Is this the ultimate form of lazy for the obesity center of the world? Or is it a treatise on the voyeuristic side of us, the control freaks? Those of us who love playing the SIMS so much that the opportunity to actually control a real person is irresistable.

I don't have the answers, I'm just puzzed by the things I find on the internet.

P.S. Want to read seriously funny, check out "It's a Good Thing Revenge Was Not Served Cold" at www.anvil-media.com

New Vocabulary

2006-02-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

Your Russian Word of the Day...

I don't know how to spell it... Russian being a foreign alphabet and all, but more or less phonetically, the word for Violin is something like Skrivka, or Skribka.

Brought to you by the intro ESL class... Have a nice day!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-31T11:28:00.000-08:00

A slightly weird thing about me is that I kind of enjoy being surrounded by sights and sounds that I cannot understand. Which is why, when I saw in the newspaper that Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year was about to happen, AND found out that the largest festival outside of China is only as far away as Vancouver British Columbia, Thomas and I decided to go.

We stayed in a "hostel" which really means, really bad hotel in the wrong part of town, but if we call it a hostel, you'll think you're having an adventure and come anyway. Now, I could be wrong, because I'm not that familiar with Canadian hotel customs, but I think we were next door to a brothel (do canadian hotels usually have neon lights that say GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS on them?) When we checked in, the desk clerk reminded us to take everything out of the car and then leave the glove box open so the potential theives could see there was nothing to steal.

However, we forgave them, because the location was great. We were just a few blocks from chinatown, and we could easily walk into downtown. We visited the shopping districts of Robson Street and Gastown, walked along the waterfront, had a drink in Yaletown, took a water taxi to Granville Island Public Market, and just generally had a good time, but the highlight really was the Chinese celebration.

We went to the event in the expo center there on the eve. (We would have gone to the temple, but it was a long way away). There was a modeling contest, tons of booths, some great food, and about a million games you could play if you could figure out the chinese directions, or if the vendor noticed you were white and spoke english.

The following morning we headed back into chinatown to pick up a wealth beckoning cat and to see the parade. It was phenomenal. Thomas and I went to a bakery in Chinatown to get some snacks (I had a deep fried egg ball... it's better than it sounds) and then found a spot near the start of the parade route. It started at noon, and at 1:10 there were still groups going past, but we were so cold we could hardly move, so we decided it was time to head home. The whole thing was full of life and color, and it was a great adventure.

Wishing you a happy year of the Dog...

You would not believe...

2006-01-04T22:58:00.000-08:00

I love U2... Like, favorite band ever, hands down. Like, debated taking an overnight redeye to San Fransisco, cause a friend had an extra ticket. LOVE THEM!

So when I found out they were ending their Vertigo world tour in Portland, OR... well, I had to get tickets. My roommate at the time also happened to be a fan, so we bought tickets together. Not great seats, but I'm in school.

Then some time passed. Things happened. I met a boy, I went to Europe, I decided to totally change my life, and I moved out of the apartment. A few months go by, and suddenly I get an letter in the mail. It has a check in it, with a post it note... a tiny 2 x 2 post it note. It says "Here's the money from your ticket. I found someone to buy it." UMMMM WHAT??????

So I was outraged, my boyfriend, in his attempts at being helpful, called the police and asked if that was theft... they laughed, and said talk to Judge Judy. Okay... bummed... I could have fought it out with her... but frankly, if she was that upset with me, then I didn't really want to ruin the concert I have been looking forward to for years by sitting with her...

Did I mention that that concert sold out in just a few hours after tickets went on sale? They did... So there are no tickets to be had. Actually, that's not true... there were some on Ebay... cause everything's on ebay, but they were maybe 300 dollars and up. So, I became reconciled to the idea that I wasn't going to go see my favorite band. Sad, but they'll tour forever, so I'll catch them next time.

And then the day of the concert rolls around. Dec. 19, for those of you who are keeping track, and I'm not feeling all that great, I've had a bad cold the last week and am feeling a little under the weather, so I'm thinking. "It's okay, next time the tour I won't be sick."

Then 2:00 that day rolls around, I'm laying on the couch, finishing christmas presents and watching Perry Mason.
The phone rings.

It is my boyfriend. He says, "I have two tickets to the concert tonight. Do you want to go?" Ummmm YES!!!!!

It turns out, he had been calling the Universal Records PR guy for U2 daily for the last week. He'd gotten permission from his boss to do a story on the concert, and had managed to get us 2 press tickets.

It was awesome! The seats were WAY better that what I had bought and lost. I spent the money that my roommate sent me on a concert t-shirt... I bought my man a beer, and I still came out ahead financially. The concert was Phenomenal. Really just too good to be true. They played all my favorite songs, and all of Thomas's, they ran around their circular stage, Bono sang operetically to Miss Sarajevo, and it was one of the most chillingly beautiful male voices I have encountered. I was walking on air all night...

I hope you all had a merry Christmas and Hannukah and I wish you the best for this coming year.

Doctor Nose Best!

2005-09-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Today was nose surgery day. It went great. Thomas came with me and waited in recovery with me. It was actually not too bad. I'm doing fine now. I don't know what my nose looks like, because it has a hard plaster cast on it. But the doctor said that it was easy, not terribly badly hurt and went very smoothly. Yay me...

So... only two more surgeries to go.

I'm sorry I can't post pics, but for some reason, this blogging service doesn't have a mac compatible software, so I'm stuck until I find a way to get my PC running again... email me personally though and I'll send you some!

Nobody Nose the Trouble I've Seen

2005-09-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that I will be having my nose "remolded" after all. They say things like "remold" to make you think of preschool, playing with clay, and other happy things. They don't say, we're going to break your nose again, and then stuff it with plastic and put plaster on the top... No... That might scare people off. I don't know exactly when yet I will have my nose "remolded" I just hope it will turn out looking more or less like it did before. The doctor does promise I will be able to breathe better... which would be key, as thats what noses are apparently for.

Other than that, I have gone back to Elementary school. I am currently working as the substitute media assistant at a local elementary school. You'd think that with my own current lisp, I'd be better at understanding theirs. But I'm still having some trouble decifering students' pronunciations of their last names... And there are always a few who don't understand me, and can't figure out what question I'm asking them. Not one has asked me about my missing tooth however. I can only assume that they think it fell out, I put it under my pillow, and the toothfairy came. Soon enough a new one will grow back, at least that's what they're probably thinking.

Anyway, that's my life these days. Thomas comes on Thursday, and I'm sure that will shake up my schedule a little... but we'll see!

Thintherely
Maren

Sticks and Stones may break my bones...

2005-08-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

But a surfboard, coming at your face with the full force of a 6 foot wave definitely will.

So... yes, I went surfing today. With my little brother, we go about once a summer together usually. And today was great, waves were awesome... it wasn't sunny, but it was warm, and the rain on the ocean is just a cool thing to be sitting in the middle of. My brother did query whether or not a raindrop that falls back in the ocean feels that it has been cheated out of the water cycle.

Anyway, my last wave was amazing, the biggest one I'd sen all day, but I hadn't surfed on that big before, and my board started down the face of the wave WAY too fast, and then the nose of the board went under the water.... if you've ever surfed before, you know that that is a horrible thing. So I was flipped off my board, the board went under, I went under, and I knew right then it was going to be pretty bad. I stayed underwater as long as I could, let myself be tossed around a little, so that my board would have time to get to the front side of the wave I was in.

Unfortunately, when I stood up finally, the surfboard was NOT on the front side of the wave, it was on the front side of the following wave, and as I stood up to get air, it bashed me full in the face....

So, broken nose, broken teeth, and whiplash...

But at least I didn't get eaten by a shark!

Maren

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

2005-08-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last week in Paderborn Germany. Home of the world's largest computer museum, the ruins of Charlemagne's castle, a cathedral which boasts a stained glass window in which there are three rabbits and three ears, yet each rabbit has two ears...(how do they do it?) Most of all however, this town hosts my sister, whom I have had a lovely week visiting. I have met her friends, seen what it's like to live here, including what food to eat, and what foods they just don't have here. We've visited interesting things all over the countryside around Paderborn, and done our share of shopping and window shopping. We canoed down a river with our respective boyfriends, and Laurel and Fabian got a passenger in their boat, who weirdly, was named Maren but wasn't me. My boat just saw it's share of being clotheslined by the low hanging trees (no, I wasn't steering, and yes, we did get better.) There are a million other stories, and it has been great to see Laurel, but I can't spend forever here at the Paderborn University library, signed in as my sister.
I have decided that while this is a nice place to visit, it is not somewhere I could live... mostly for the reason that they just don't have vegetarian food here. The few things they do have just don't look all that appetizing to me. But the people are wonderful, even when they don't really speak with you and you just have to pantomime. I am ready to come home though, sleep in my bed, cook my own food, speak my own language, and find books in English.
For those of you who read this and live in my neck of the woods, I am looking for an apartment and a job, needing both soon, so if you know of anything, give me a heads up.
One last exciting bit of news... Thomas is moving to Portland, as soon as he can, and I am so happy! So... if you hear of any web marketing jobs, let me know.

Tchuss
Maren

Gotta Love Germanz

2005-08-15T01:59:00.000-07:00

Where the z and the y are switched on the kezboard... so if I want to type correctly, I have to really think about which letters are in the words I intend to use.

But, what one really has to admire about Germanz, or as Thomas says, Chermanz, after two weeks of UK, and DK... is the prices. We went from spending a dollar and a half for every little juice box, to 50 cents for a huge glass of orange juice. Last night we had a full on (proper) Thai feast, for about 12 dollars, a nice change from the 25 we´d been paying in UK-DK.

The weather however has been our pennance. We have had rain and clouds for most of the trip, sad but true... luckily I bought a really sweet rain jacket before I left, and I love wearing it... even though it is full on neon green. I just say its so I cant be lost in a crowd.

We are staying in the Heart of Gold Hostel in Berlin... 10 points to those of you who know what that means. Its a super cool place... love the decor... love the breakfast...

Today I am off to see how Berlin has reconstructed itself, and what a fashion capital in Europe looks like...

Biss Dann!
Maren

2005-08-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

Here's what he looks like... this is on top of Salisbury Hill... Peter Gabriel anyone?

2005-08-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

Annelise and me at the Viking Graveyard,

2005-08-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

The friendly goat/sheep employed to eat the grass off the viking graves in Aalborg

I admit it...

2005-08-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

What has not been mentioned here before... that although I have told part of the truth, I have left a big part out. The reason I went to England... which is a lovely beautiful country... was to see my boyfriend and meet his family. Seeing Thomas again has been wonderful. It turns out that I the things I had hoped about him are true... He's sweet and smart and funny and interesting and I haven't been bored with him a second... and, every free second we have here, he grabs a book to read, Nick Hornby, Arthur Conan Doyle, Aristotle. Which means he's well spoken as well. His family is great! So hospitable and kind. We had a sunday roast with his whole family, and it was very cozy and warm. Curious about him? See his website: http://www.humantail.com

So far, in England I saw Virginia Woolfe's house and garden, the English Countryside, Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, the Magna Carta, the Brighton Pier, the Pavilion in Brighton (where the Prince Regent had party after party, until Queen Victoria got it, decided she hated it, and sold it to the town council), the towns of Lewes, Rodmell, Kingston, Iford, all in East Sussex... Just up the road from Paul McCartney (Honest). Oh, and Hever castle, where Anne Boleyn lived. We saw some Jousting, walked through a water maze, and saw the gorgeous gardens.

Now we are in Denmark. We started in Aarhus, where I got my bearings, Thomas learned a touch of Danish, and we visited some of my old hangouts. Then we rented a car, and drove north to Aalborg, where Annelise lives... see her blog link. On the way we stopped to see my old apartment/kollegium. Looks much better now than it did before.

Next we are on to Esbjerg/Oksbol, Legoland, Roskilde, and Copenhagen.

Hilsen
Maren

Up, up, and away!

2005-07-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

In a mere week (actually less), I'm off to Europe! Yay! I'm so excited. I haven't been back to Denmark since I lived there in 2001, and I can't wait! This trip is going to be a grand adventure. I found a super cool hostel in Germany that is based on the book "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy." So much so that they even make comments about bringing your towel, and have long quotes on the webpage. SO COOL... and when you book a room, it says so long and thanks for all the fish!
I don't even know how to say how much I'm looking forward to this... seeing England, seeing Denmark, seeing friends from camp, seeing my sister, seeing all the other things that I can't predict now.
So, stay tuned for further reports! Send me your address if you want me to send you a postcard!

P.S. I've moved, so if you have my old address, know that I won't get anything there, I'm currently using my parents address...

I'll post when I get the chance!

2005-07-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

Mt. Bachelor behind Todd Lake

2005-07-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

Peter never misses a bite while framing his shot!

2005-07-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

I call this Cowboyhat Savasana on a Log,

2005-07-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

Me, in my fabulous new Orange Cowboy hat, at Todd lake

2005-07-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

These flowers are called shooting stars (I think) and were all over around Todd Lake!

2005-07-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

One of the Aunt Teri photo contest winners... Peter took the picture, but I'm holding the frog!

2005-07-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

Kamrin, Me, and Kendall, wearing our shirts for our dance to Aeblemand... Can you tell what fruits we each are?

2005-07-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Himmelbjerget counselors 2005

2005-07-05T22:17:00.001-07:00

All the campers on the last day!

2005-07-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

Lowering the Flag after dinner Friday night, I'm the one with the Danish flag in my hair!

Happy Birthday To Me!

2005-07-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

Jeg er femogtyve aar gammel! I am 25 years old. Crazy, quarter of a century. But I feel good, and I'm having some fun. Maybe I'll get the hang of this grown up thing after all.

Camp ended, fabulous as always. I ended up performing in the Talent show with the little Kamrin and Kendall... So cute, and such nice, smart girls! Had a fun last night chat with Cassy, and I'm excited to make her a Danish wedding cake. (She was going to get married without one!)

Then I skidaddled over to Sunriver, where a good portion of my family was having a birthday shindig. It was nice to be out in the sun, go check crawdad traps, laugh at the antics of the dog (who I swear is getting senile), hike, go running with the assistance of my brother and Aunt on Trike, do a little solo canoeing, and just generally relax a little finally.

We went to Todd lake on the afternoon of the 4th and Aunt Teri let us borrow her camera to walk around the lake... so we had a little photo contest... I'm posting a couple of the winners...

Paa Gensyn
Maren

2005-06-30T23:06:00.001-07:00

Derek and Greg doing awards as computer nerds...

2005-06-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

This is that really fun relay where you have to get dressed, then run, then undress, and the next person puts the clothes on.

2005-06-30T23:04:00.000-07:00

The Danish Townspeople waiting for the Naked Emperor.

2005-06-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

Karsten McIntosh as the Emperor, fully decked out in his new clothes.

2005-06-30T23:02:00.000-07:00

Pool Time! Kirsten and Derek both got really sunburned as a result of this hour...

2005-06-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Folk dancing inside because of the rain... This is called the Happy Circle. Girls go in four, then yell Whoo!

2005-06-30T23:00:00.001-07:00

Counselors during pre-camp customs set up!

2005-06-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

My family group, after our production of the Wild Swans.

2005-06-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

Nick gives our Danish Senior Camper a massage during inspection...

2005-06-30T22:58:00.000-07:00

Greg and Derek do awards as AC-DK

2005-06-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

Night View of Portland from Camp

Danish Camp!

2005-06-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Yet again... this is my 13th year here... I am at Himmelbjerget Danish Language Camp. Today, finally, the rain stopped and we could go outside, enjoy the pool, play counting games on the lawn. I adore my danish class... they are super cute, and for once this year, they are actually moving at the appropriate pace for a beginner class. Last year my beginner class covered two weeks worth of curriculum in a week. This year, they are having the appropriate stuggles with the weird vowels and hard numbers of the Danish Language.

Today, just for fun, another counselor and I busted out a Yoga DVD and invited anyone who wanted to to join us for a little yoga during freetime! We had a group of about 6 girls join us, which was cool! And they were pretty excited about it at the end, even asking if I would leave on the extra features so they could learn a few extra poses.

Due to some unfortunate health problems I've had lately, I have some "fun" new dietary restrictions I have to be following. Because of this fabulous new regime, I have been labeled by the camp cooks as "VEGAN + No Nuts" which means that I get some REALLY interesting food here. Today I was served "vegan rice pudding" which was one of the most horrid things I have ever tasted! It was rice with a horribly strong taste of molasses and some weird chunks of pineapple. Other winners this week included the plate of rice and cup of fruit that they suggested was a full meal for me... I went the first two days here without being served any protein at all... c'mon people, how hard is it to heat up a Veggie Sausage!

Anyway, now, happily, things are going well, and we have struck a happy balance of veganism... I don't think this will be a permanent habit though... regular old vegetarianism is good for me!

I have been here at camp for more than half of my life... I am turning 25 this year, and I have spent summers here since I was 11. It's funny because when we reminisce now, I can hardly differentiate which year different things happen... It all blurs together, but it's so great to have this piece of my heritage and this community to be part of!

P.S. Boondoggling is AWESOME!

2005-06-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

Omar and Amanda at their reception

Weddings

2005-06-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Weddings are fun... and its good that I think so, cause I've got a few lined up this summer. Today marked the first in the series, it was my cousin (or second cousin of some sort) Amanda's wedding to a Peruvian man named Omar. So, because his family from Peru flew in for the wedding, the service was done in both Spanish and English. It was pretty cool. I could even pick out a few words here and there that I remembered from elementary school or Sesame Street or something.

The coolest thing about the wedding though, was seeing all the cousins (or second cousins) from my dad's side of the family. We used to have cousin parties at Christmas every year, and all of us cousins who hardly knew each other would attempt to play together. Well, I think we should start them up again, because I have some cool cousins, and now I'm actually old enough to really enjoy talking to them.

The wedding also had some of the best wedding music I've ever heard. They hired a band that played Peruvian music, which is Latin sounding, but not salsa. And the Peruvian family was very into dancing. Omar kept standing up and saying into the microphone, "this is a good Peruvian song, and everyone has to dance." He would then grab hands, one male, one female, and partner people up, no matter if you had no idea how to dance Peruvian. Somehow he had faith that you'd figure it out, and usually, because the songs were a good 15 minutes long, you did have time to at least catch on to something before the end.

I danced once dance with Omar's best man, who shortly traded me off to another of Omar's friends. He was a great dancer, but English was not his forte. Over the course of the 15 minute song, we established that his name was Carlos, mine was Maren, and that no further conversation was going to be possible, no matter what kind of communication we tried. At least I got a good dance out of it... and I reminded myself just how much I love to salsa dance....

Off to rent Dirty Dancing, Havana Nights....

If you give a teacher a cookie...

2005-06-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

I was baking chocolate chip cookies last night, and I decided to turn on the TV and ha)ve a little background noise. Unfortunately I got suckered in to, of all things, Diane Sawyer interviewing Brad Pitt. Now, he's not my favorite. In fact, while I love his shiny shirt in Ocean's 12, he doesn't really do much for me. I have other actors I like better, but when you throw an interview with Bono in there, I'm totally hooked. (They played dirty though, by playing what may be my all time favorite U2 tune, One).

Anyway, refreshingly, try as Diane might, good ole Brad was determined to keep the interview about more important things than his recently broken marriage. He lobbied heavily for his recent cause, an organization called the One foundation, or something similar. (See site for more info: http://www.one.org). The whole point that Brad was attempting to make, through shot after shot of some of the worst living situations in the world, is that with a relatively small amount of money and influence, we could drastically change the way they live, their life expectancies, and their ability to survive. And so he asks us to petition President Bush to support his cause.

Good work Brad! Give them clean drinking water, education and medicine. I'm all for any cause that makes life better for people, and makes the world healthier and safer for all of us. But hold up a minute... have you been out of your fancy neighborhood in the US lately? Did you know that there are Americans who don't have food, or access to medicine? Have you seen the affects of disease and violence in our own country? Okay, maybe it doesn't look as dramatic. You don't have hoardes of little kids chasing you through the bad inner city neighborhoods, or even suburban ones. So lets think about what we want to ask Bush for. How about national healthcare for the people in our own country as well. How about making sure kids here have enough to eat too? Why does it have to be foreign or exotic for us to feel like we need to help?

Okay, down off my soapbox now... Please feel free to comment!

Life is a surprise double feature

2005-06-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

Peter, my "little" brother, was in town last night for his "weekend" (meaning any set of two or more days off work.) If you're curious about his job, see the link to his blog. He's funny. Anyway, we decided to hit the movies, and see Kung Fu Hustle. Entertaining, weird, outrageous, and graceful are the words that come to mind, but I don't want to spoil the ending, so check out the website if you want more info! http://www.kungfuhustle.com/

Anyway, as we left the theater, Portland seemed to be alive with sound... musical sound to be exact, and as we walked back to our (badly) parked truck (I wasn't driving), the music was getting louder. We got to the truck and did what any child who grew up in my family would do... we weighed our tiredness against the growing sense of adventure and curiosity. In my family, curiosity almost always wins. So we started walking. Now, sound waves bounce off hard surfaces, and cities are mostly made from brick and cement, so it was hard to get a good handle on which way to walk exactly, but as we made our way, we figured there were really only two places outdoors that Portland could hold enough people to make the kind of noise we were hearing... Lincoln High School or PGE park. As we approached Lincoln we hypothesized that it was either some sort of upscale senior year event, or an elaborate practical joke. But as we rounded the corner it became apparent that it was neither, it was PGE park.

Just as we arrived, the music stopped and the cheering got loud. We figured we'd missed the event, but thought we'd check the reader boards to at least see what it had been. And then the lights came back on... the screaming got loud and the encore started. From where we stood, looking down on the field from above, you couldn't see the stage, they had it carefully covered so that all you could see was the lead singer's shadow projected on a sheet.... However, you could see the 500+ screaming fans who were waving their hands in the air and screaming to "pour some sugar." It turned out to be the fantastic double header of Def Leppard and Bryan Adams in their Rock'N'Roll Double Header tour (For more info see the link: http://www.defleppard.com/news/index_update_0517.html) Peter and I figured we got the best end of the deal, a movie and the only def leppard song we actually knew performed live and free. Although we both agreed Bryan Adams would have been cool (how old is he anyway?) I just loved the sight and sound of all those screaming fans.... Makes me want to be a pop star!
Maybe I'll try out for American Idol!

2005-05-31T00:43:00.000-07:00

There were all these caves, some of which you could even stand up in... not this one though

2005-05-31T00:41:00.000-07:00

South Falls... They used to push cars over this falls to celebrate fourth of july... party on!

Where have all the -insert appropriate plural noun here- gone?

2005-05-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

Siblings, Friends, Globetrotters, Cheap plane tickets, Websites without popups....

All things that lately I have had a hard time keeping track of/or finding. As the world becomes smaller, the people in my life seem to move around in more. Like Electrons around a nucleus, leaving me with internet as a major form of communication. So, I figured that, like the rest of my siblings, I should go ahead and blog.

Today was Memorial Day. In memory of the soldiers who have died for my freedom, I was going to go surfing at the coast. But... I cannot transport a surfboard on my rackless car, and the girl with the car surfboards might have concievably fit in decided not to partake in our trip. Sorry my fallen patriots, no surf in your honor today. Instead, my friends Brian and Roy and I took it upon ourselves to go where it seems all foreign language speaking families in the Salem area go for memorial day.

We went to hike Silver Falls State Park. My guidebook says it is the most visited state park in Oregon. Today that certainly seemed to be the case. It was packed. Mostly with families. The waterfalls are beautiful, if not as huge as the ones in the Columbia River Gorge, and it's an easy hike. I mean, if a 5 year old can do it, I sure as heck am should be able to get through the hike.

Its funny on a hike like this where you stop a lot to take pictures and stare at tons of water falling over some rocks. You end up kind of leapfrog hiking with the other people who left around the same time you did. Because you pass them, and then you stop and they pass you, and then you pass them again. So there was this hispanic family with a bunch of little kids that we kept passing and being passed by. And the last time we passed them, we were coming up from below on some switchbacks, so I was looking up at them from about 10 feet below where they were, when the mother and the youngest daughter stopped because the daughter had gotten a bloody nose. The other kids and the father seemed to not even notice, because they just kept on walking (Maybe this happens all the time?) The girl was wiping her nose on gum wrappers and leaves (neither of which are very absorbent) because that was all they could find... So I took pity, I had along a handkerchief that I had gotten in my christmas stocking probably a decade ago. It has a bunch of games printed on it that you are supposed to do in pencil and then take the thing home and wash the lines out so you can do it again on your next camping trip. Well, I will do the games no more. I stopped and gave it to the little girl so that she could stop her bloody nose. The mother was really grateful (probably because she no longer had to chew all the gum so the girl could have the wrappers), and I walked away feeling like I had really accomplished something.

A good day.