out with the old, in with the new.

After more than a year long hiatus i'm back to blogging... just in a different format this time. With less focus on weekly musings, I can get back to the heart of what I set out to do here, document important milestones of my life and more often than not my awesome adventures. Its been awesome running this bad boy since 2010 and continuing to develop it in to something new, but its time for a change, so i've created a blank slate, a brand new space to work with. Check it out. Follow along. Stay tuned for more.

Explore The New JennBlech >

here we are...

Oh boy... where do I even begin... 
How does one return to blogging after a 5 month hiatus?

First let's establish the reason for my nearly half year departure from something I worked on so meticulously in the past - a wedding. Not just any wedding, my wedding. Yep, that's right, I return to you as someone's wife (which still sounds strange to me after ten freaking years).

Around the time of my last post, wedding planning/designing/crafting, insanity began to shift my life balance in to dangerously stressful territory, so I had to cut something out for my own peace of mind, and unfortunately my blogging platform had to give. Incidentally I have so much to say/post/document, but so little time to play catch up on everything. As I sit here typing this out, my head is filled with our upcoming trip to Europe in just two short weeks... Basically getting things back to normal, i'm afraid, seems damn near impossible.

As much as i've enjoyed working on My Week posts over the past year or so, moving forward I think I am going to have to edit things down a bit more. My plan is to focus more on the the big events, trips, milestones, etc. and less on the every day. Please bare with me as I continue to catch up on those promised posts from the past year (Telluride, San Francisco, John Day, every little wedding detail, birthdays, and soon our honeymoon).

One day in the not so distant future I will be back at it, but for now please allow me to get things in my life back to my version of "normal".

In the meantime, I leave you with our wedding website (that I worked super hard on) to comb through, as well as our awesome preview video! 
And one of these days I promise you will see some "new" posts popping up.

♥ 

my week in pictures 90

monday 3/16 - sunday 3/22

We made it out a bit more last week to meet up with friends, celebrate St. Patty's Day, and spend a pretty awesome sunny day at Mt. Bachelor finally breaking in our snow shoes. We just happened to stumble on a little free tour led by the park rangers for beginners that was pretty awesome, so we decided to give that a try. I can't wait to get back up there and wander around on our own next time. It seems like you can really go anywhere with these things.

 

[[ st. patty's day at worthy with tiny little irish dancers. beer fairies at silver moon. a stop in to deschutes. snow shoe adventure on mt. bachelor! lunch at cabin 22. drinks and darts. sunday's breakfast. i can't get enough of these cherry blossoms! ]]

my week in pictures 89

monday 3/2 - sunday 3/15

I'm still trying to catch up a bit, so I'm going to be doubling up a few weeks until everything is back to normal. I apologize for the lack of attention to the blog lately, but I have discovered that planning a wedding is a pretty time consuming process!

On 3/6 we headed to Portland for the weekend so that I could do a little bridesmaid dress shopping with my little sisters. Shopping was unsuccessful, but it was an absolutely beautiful weekend, and we got to spend plenty of time outside in the sunshine with friends and family.

The following weekend we stuck around town and did some hiking and tasting... pretty standard.

[[ week 1: checking out the district in portland. exploring mc. menamins with the fam. me and dest (not sure why this picture looks airbrushed/i look tan). beautiful cherry blossoms! week 2: sampling some new silver moon brews. carpaccio and drinks for happy hour. up the butte! i never get tired of the views here. reward lunch at jackson's. ]]

my week in pictures 88

monday 2/16 - sunday 3/1

The two weeks that followed my trips to California and the Frace wedding in Portland were pretty mellow (aside from my computer crashing and me having to buy a new one), so I am combing the two in an attempt to get all caught up sooner than later. Here are the pics, including some pretty epic Bend sunsets, ice cream in the snow, and suit shopping for Pat.

[[ an epic week of sunsets from the backyard. evenings out at the breweries. mountain views. antique browsing in redmond. stops at wild ride and diego's for dinner. sunday morning snow dusting. breakfast and suite shopping. ice cream in the snow. hanging outside at the lot. ]]

my week in pictures 87 the frace wedding & a few extras...

I am playing some major blog catch up right now, and definitely have some big posts to get to before I am done, like my two trips to California for example. In the meantime, I am going to try to get to the present with a few My Week posts, though there may be some holes in the dates, so bare with me...

monday 2/9 - sunday 2/15

First off, I have a few random pictures from the night before I flew our to San Jose. Me and Pat decided to grab dinner downtown and ended up scoring a giant seafood tagine at Joolz for the special price, score! It was delicious. Obviously I spent two weeks in and out of California... which I will get to soon, and we FINALLY got our Save The Dates out, which made me very happy.

[[ pat and the giant seafood tagine. dinner at joolz. flying over mt. hood... several times. our save the dates back from the printer! ]]

Now then, on to the post... The week was mostly spent playing catch up from California, but on Thursday night we headed over the pass to Portland for our friends Alex and Drea's wedding. Our friend Molly and her boyfriend were nice enough to let us stay in their awesome apartment, right up the street from the venue, which turned out to be perfect for the whole weekend.

Pat was one of the groomsmen, so on Friday we met up with everyone at Bridgeport Brewery for the rehearsal, and then headed to Lucky Lab for lunch. Afterward, I hung out with Drea for a bit while the boys picked up their tuxes, and then met back up with everyone for drinks. 

Saturday morning we grabbed some brunch at a little cafe below her building, relaxed for a bit, and then Pat went off to do groomsmen stuff while I got ready. 

[[ beautiful sunset on the way to portland. enjoying our new moscow mule mugs. friday morning. rehearsal dinner. portland through drea's hotel room. delicious saturday breakfast. my awesome gift wrapping job. ]]

Since the wedding was on Valentine's Day we finally got to spend one together and I was really excited! I even bought a cute new dress for the occasion. 

The venue was a private event space inside Bridgeport Brewery, and it was perfect for their intimate wedding. The ceremony was so sweet and I am super happy for the two of them! My absolute favorite detail of the wedding was the Voodoo Doughnut "cake" display, though their gold "Best Day Ever" backdrop was pretty awesome as well. 

After the reception was over a group of us headed downtown to Boiler Room for a few more drinks and some dancing slash karaoke before calling it a night.

I didn't get a ton of great pictures myself, so I grabbed a few from Instagram and Facebook as well. 

[[ a few shots from the wedding from the interwebs. us taking silly pictures at the reception. my valentine's date. fun with bubbles! boiler room. ]]

Once we finally got up Sunday morning we walked up the street to Brix Tavern to grab brunch with Molly and ended up running in to the bride and groom at a coffee shop on the way. They both seemed super happy and glad to have a day (mostly) to themselves after all the family craziness from the few days before. We said our goodbyes, grabbed a delicious brunch (complete with more free doughnuts), and then headed back over the pass for home. Though it was hard to leave such a beautiful Portland day behind. 

[[ a beautiful portland day! our yummy brunch at brix, complete with free doughnuts. the sunny drive home. ]]