Ich Bin Dreizig Jahre Alt!

Herzliche zum Geburtstag zu mir!

Somewhere I'm Already 30...

Like on the east coast, where I was born, 30 years ago today. But, since I'm on the west coast right now, I'm giving myself the extra couple hours to revel in my 20s. I'm not quite sure why this is such a big deal for me (I don't remember leaving my teens being such the rite of passage) but I'm really feeling this one.
Today I spent a really great day with Anita and Eric. They took me up to Mary's Peak, which is the highest point in the Coast Mountain Range. Then we went to their favorite winery in Philomath (small town not far from Corvallis) and had fun with a blind wine tasting. I failed it miserably (I wouldn't be able to distinguish a French chardonnay from a California chardonnay if a Frenchman and surfer were doing the pouring) but it was great ambience and the owners are really cool.
Had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant (I think I love Corvallis) then Anita and I took a walk around the ag fields at Oregon State Univ. All in all, a great day. Thanks, guys!!

They've only just begun...Eric points out the future homestead he and Anita will be erecting once they've parked the conestoga...

A little quiet time with nature.

What good friends I have, making sure I get a little spliffy on my b-day weekend!

It's hard to see in this picture, but this bookstore had a Harry Potter display in their window. Many of the schoolbooks Harry and his friends would have bought at Flourish and Blotts were displayed--The Monster Book of Monsters (with the necessary bindings!), A History of Magic, some of Guilderoy Lockhart's fanciful yarns, and many more. What a great show!

Late Night Delirium

Well, HELLO DAR!

It's late here, I've been suffering from a 5-day long headache that shows no sign of ending, both my girls are pooped out (literally and figuratively), I'm enjoying having cable tv in my hotel room, I had a yummy vegetarian dinner at Anita and Eric's and played with their bunnies (that's not a reference to something naughty; they really do have bunnies), my gums hurt from that aforementioned headache, I got a really nice long e-mail from my long-time bud Darren-from-England that really made my night and I talked to my girlfriend Heather which was really awesome, did I mention I think I was poisoned last week? I'm staring at a jar of applesauce right now that my girls love on top of their dog food, in fact, Shabbi won't eat her dog food unless I spice it up with something like applesauce so there ya go, Kika gets so excited these days that she's been peeing on my lap, that headache I keep talking about is travelling into my cheekbones now, Animal Planet is showing a dog story in Michigan right now, Shabbi just started snoring, will I be able to sleep with that distraction???, I really should brush my teeth now, Lampenbeschatten, are you there?--I'm thinking bout ya! I'm reading all of this and laughing at my own pitiful self, trust me I don't really think I'm very funny, but sometimes high levels of patheticness have to be laughed at, so there I am.
Guess I should go to sleep now. Disregard everything you've read or else don't mention it to me when I'm sane(r).
G'night.

Last week of 20-something

So many of you know that this is the last week of my 20's. I've been trying to do some fun things to remember this decade by (hence, the camping trip to Portland). I'm heading to Corvallis to spend my 30th birthday with my good friends Anita and Eric, who I know will get me sufficiently drunk that all I'll remember about the big day was that I was suspiciously happy (or as my brother would say, "spliffy"). Anyway, Sunday is when I enter the "grown-up" world of my 30s. Anyone who wants a piece of fun 20-something Lauren better get in touch with me now...

Getting Our Feet Wet...

This past weekend, the girls and I made a trip up to the Portland area to visit our good friends Eva-Maria and her daughter, Alexandra. Having them in Oregon to visit has certainly made the summer even more fun for us three. We had decided to take a camping trip on the coast, but alas! we had not planned ahead enough, and all state campgrounds were booked. So, we decided to look for some smaller campgrounds inland, and we finally found a spot not far from their house. Although I've been camping in various situations before, this was the first real camping experience for us three girls (pitching the tent, cooking food over an open pit fire, using the outside pump to get water, etc.). Eva and Alexandra were old pros and showed us a thing or two when it came to being seasoned campers! Luckily, since it was a small campground, we weren't bothered by noise from other campers, and the experience was a lot of fun. I think my favorite part was playing card games by twilight.

The next morning, we got up, Eva made a fire (for the much-needed coffee!) and we had a leisurely breakfast before packing up and heading to Cape Meares to lie on the beach. This was Shabbi's first visit to the Pacific Ocean (now she and Kika have done the Atlantic, the Great Lakes and the Pacific--what travellers my girls are!) and she got her toes wet before getting bowled over by an incoming wave! While Shabbi might not have her "beach legs" anymore, we all had a good time sitting around, watching Alexandra and her dog, Bo, digging in the sand, looking for sandcrabs and sea water. Before we said good-bye to the beach for the day, we paid a visit to the Cape Meares lighthouse and the so-called Octopus Tree (a Sitka Spruce with 6 limbs). All in all, it was a great weekend and we're so happy we got to spend it with such good friends!

Here I am sampling some blackberries along the trail. This has become one of my favorite new pasttimes and I've become quite the sophisticated (or maybe just greedy?) blackberry connosieur!!

The sentinels keeping guard at the campground...

Alexandra digging for sandcrabs at Cape Meares beach...

Yes, I'm a lighthouse geek, and Oregon has plenty to keep my geekiness satisfied. Cape Meares Lighthouse wasn't very big, but was really neat in its history and location.

And the six-limbed "Octopus Tree"...so is it really a hexapus tree???

Construction Time Again

So I've decided to restructure my site into true blog formatting, so that anyone reading has the ability to leave comments, go to the archives to look at past blogs, etc. The pictures will also be shrunk a bit so that you can see them without having to scroll down so much. This reformatting is going to take some doing, so please bear with me, as my internet connection is fairly limited. I wanted to get this restructuring going before my time here winds down, though, as I plan to be on the road travelling a bit in September and don't want to have to worry about it then.

Hope everyone is well. Will post some pics of the girls' and my camping trip and visit to the beach this past weekend at a later date.

Nature Took a Pose

Today was an incredible day for photo opps; everywhere we went, animals seemed to just be lining up for their own private photo sessions. Not a lot was going on at the second structure I surveyed this morning (winds were pretty strong, cutting out bird activity and limiting the songs I could hear), but out of nowhere a hummingbird came and landed on my arm! It tried to suck nectar out of my arm, wouldntcha know! Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of that, but I think some moments are not photo opps, but rather precious snapshots in time to be enjoyed and remembered.Hope you all enjoy the pics below...

Here's a grouse (blue or ruffed??) that was scooting across the road in front of our truck this morning. It landed on this stump, perfectly posing for an early morning picture!

Two black-tailed deer bucks with their velvety antlers actually stood and posed while Dan and I snapped away!

And there was the female, hanging back behind the truck; she was a little shy.