leap year

So today is an official Leap Year day which is worth noting since it only happens once every four years. Although I am not quite sure what one does to celebrate/commemorate such a thing. More importantly how in the world do you celebrate your birthday if it only comes around every four years? Do you just remain technically younger than everyone else? I mean really... Four years is a long time. Four years ago my hair was straight all the time and it seems like ages ago that I would be insane enough to bother with that task.

Anyway, Happy Leap Year !? Cheers to one extra day in 2012.

[[ this picture is from around 2/2008 when we would have had the last leap year. ]]

spirit animals party

As promised, here are my pictures from Colleen's Spirit Animal Birthday Party last Saturday. Sorry they are mostly of me... there were other cameras floating around too, but no one has posted anything on Facebook just yet. I might do an update if there are some other good ones. :)

[[ some spirit animal costumes. ]]

Tiff took polaroids of everyone so I hope she throws them up soon because they turned out awesome. I did not get any pictures of Colleen!!! (Sorry lady). I am going to try and do some recapping... 

Jenn: Red Fox / Megan: Raccoon / Tiff: Deer / Colleen: Crab / Sam: Panda / Fran: Skunk / Ricky: Seal / Joe: Bear / Morgan: Elephant / Whitney: Unicorn / Nicole: Bunny... There was a cute pink flamingo too, some tigers, more bears, a kangaroo, Colleen's brother was a bat, and Jason is wearing a Wildcats jersey or something? He thought he could get away with that. I say lame. Also, Colleens crab hands were hinged and she could actually grab things!

weekend adventures 52

This weekend was way too much fun. Like really, too much. I am dead now. Back to back nights up until 5am and only a couple hours of sleep will do that. But I would expect nothing less of a birthday weekend in Portland with GD friends I don't get to see too often, including Fran.

friday night
I drove up to Portland right after work (terrible downpour the entire time) and was so relieved when I finally made it to Megans apartment. We had dinner reservations at a Vietnamese restaurant, so I freshened up and we were out the door. Dinner was delicious! I need to remember the name of it. They specialize in pho, which I personally hate with a passion, but this particular place had a lot of other noodle dishes to choose from, so I went with one of those.

After dinner we headed to a bar called Triple Nickel to chill out for a while and meet up with a few more people. Around midnight we relocated to Good Foot for some dancing. They play all 70s music Friday nights, funk, its awesome. I wish I would have taken pictures at TN when everyone was around, but I did get lots of shots while we were dancing at GF. When the bar closed down we were all hungry again so we went to The Hot Cake House for some breakfast. That place was packed but I am definitely happy we stopped to eat at least before going to bed. Sam took me home and I finally crawled in to bed with Megan around 5. ZzzzZZZzzzzz.

[[ at good foot. ]]

saturday
For some reason I was wide awake at 8:30. We laid around in bed for a couple hours though before getting up/dressed and heading downtown with Megans mom to get some breakfast and then to a bookstore called New Renaissance on 23rd. That place was huge and had so much yoga/healing crystals/incense paraphernalia it was highly entertaining. I bought Colleen the most fabulously designed birthday card there to go with her theme and found her a really pretty Spirit Animals book. By the way, they had an entire section. Me and Megan also both bought mood rings, and "Good Karma" charms for our cars. Why not?

We had to stop at Fred Meyer to get a few more costume items and then went back to Megan's apartment to finish up with our outfits before starting to get ready. Our makeup took a long time, but it was fun. I love dressing up! My eyes were ok, but the eyelashes I bought to wear were perfect! Megan's eyes turned out awesome as well. I was really really happy with how our outfits came together overall. Eventually we made it to Colleen's place and most people were already there, perfect. The rest of the night was all pictures, dancing, talking, hugging, and being super silly with good friends.

[[ breakfast. ]]

[[ spirit animals book. ]]

[[ getting ready. ]]

sunday
We had all crashed at Colleen's place so it took us a while to get going and eventually some of us ended up back at The Hot Cake house for some real breakfast. Then it was time to say goodbye, back to Megan's, nap time, and around 4:30 I finally started my tedious drive home.

((( I am going to throw up pictures from the party in my next post, so here is a teaser. )))

[[ spirit animals preview polaroids. ]]

monster mash (2010)

In 2010 everyone was all over the place after having graduated, but we all came together at Colleens house in Portland for her birthday party. She decided that she wanted to theme this one "Monster Mash" so that everyone would dress up as some sort of monster or villain. Me and Tiff worked on the decorations, along with Colleens help and came over early to help set up and then start getting ready.

I decided to be Medusa and had bought and painted a ton of tiny snakes to put in my hair, which ended up working pretty well. Everything was being held up with literally hundreds of bobbi pins, so since my hair is really really thick/heavy, they started falling out towards the end of the night and we found snakes everywhere the next morning. (I want to try this costume again sometime, but a more scary/traditional version with Greek carb).

Colleen was Max from Where The Wildthings Are, and made her entire costume from scratch! Tiff bought some hoodies from AA and monsterified them with eyes and teeth for her and Jason (which looked awesome). There was also cookie monster, Sam was "the bearded lady", and Megan was Bride of Frankenstein. Pat couldn't make it for some reason, so no costume for him.

Add caption

[[ pictures from colleens monster mash party. 2010. ]]

Of course, last year was Robot Party (2011) (<-- link), which I posted on the blog already! Robots was definitely the most costume creative and tricky party to maneuver! I love getting creative for costume parties! I am excited to see how everyones costumes turn out for Colleen's Spirit Animal birthday party tomorrow night. 

super hero party (2009)

In honor of Colleen's Spirit Animal themed birthday party this Saturday, I thought I would go back a few years and recap some of her previous parties, which are always some of my favorites. 


In 2009 we were all seniors in the design program at OSU and busy busy busy all the time. In class one morning me, Tiff, and Colleen were talking about her upcoming birthday over the weekend, and decided that we should throw her a party! We decided to go with Superheros, and the rest is history, we have had themed parties every year since.

After class we hit up the dollar tree for decorations and started working on our costumes. The requirement was that everyone either dress as their favorite super hero/villain, or make up their own. The party was a huge success and everyone got super in to it! This is one of my favorites of all time. Check it out.

(The quality is a little fuzzy, but then again, these are from a couple years ago and mostly off of Facebook)

[[ pictures from colleens superhero birthday party, 2009. ]]

I dressed up as the villain Poison Ivy (not my best work, but I was going off of the old school comics), and Pat was The Tick (like his muscles?). Other heros of note are Hunter as The Flash, and Francisco as Wolverine. Tiff was Shera from Heman and her (now) husband Jason was Handcock (the movie had just come out). We also had a Snuggieman (Ricky), Sharkman (Sam), Supersexy (Colleen), a Powerpuff Girl, Quailman from Doug, and lots of others. 

Sorry you can't really see any of the decorations... we made an awesome wall filled with "POW", "ZAP", "KABOOM" and other such comic book phrases. 

midweek inspiration 35

The rest of this weeks posts will be devoted to Colleen's upcoming themed "Spirit Animals" birthday party. Me and Tiff started the costume party tradition for her in college, and this will be its fourth year, each with a different theme in mind. I will go back and recap on them tomorrow and Friday.

I decided to dress up as a fox (the cunning trickster), because I thought that its attributes and coloring suited me pretty well. :)

I am in the process of making my ears and tail and still need to pick up a few things to complete my outfit, but I thought I would throw up some of my biggest inspirations. I am definitely taking a more abstract approach and will be layering lots of earth toned clothing to go with my ears/tail. I will also be relying heavily on makeup, though I think if I have time I will make a mask as well just in case. 

1. baby fox from Pinterest (original source unknown). 

2. close-up fox from Certiroari

3. The Fantastic Mr. Fox Costume by Sea of Shoes 

4. Woodland Creatures Series by Fawn & Feather 

    (My main inspiration. 

    I sincerely wish I had the time and talent to make that hat/mitten
    combo for this weekend!!)

5. Fox Mask by Michelle Clement

6. painting by Charmaine Olivia

7. little deer from Pinterest (original source unknown). 

blurr

This week is going by much too quickly, so I am afraid I have to create a post with a lack of content for today. Still battling the plague and I have a ton of design work to get done, so I leave you with an image that sums up my day...

I do have posts planned for the remaining three weekdays though, so I promise things will get more interesting tomorrow. The rest of this week is going to be on the theme of Colleen's birthday party coming up this weekend, including some recaps on past years festivities. :)

[[ throat coat tea and a never ending checklist. ]]

lunch with the pops

Last weekend I went up to Portland to do some shopping for an upcoming costume party, but since I am still sick, no real adventures. Sunday me and my dad did go to Kornblatts for some delicious lunch. Since I have so many siblings I hardly get to spend any time with just him, so it was nice to talk for a few hours. I had some matzo ball soup and latkes, and as always, it was delicious. We have been eating at this place since we first moved to Oregon so quite a bit. 

[[ pops & me at lunch. excuse my fuzzy awkward picture. ]]

sick day

Today I am home sick, but alas, I never stop working. I started feeling crummy at the beginning of the week and despite my attempts at fighting off the virus, I admitted defeat yesterday afternoon while I was sitting at my desk with two sweatshirts on, my jacket, a scarf, and still shivering. (Yes, that was a very long sentence). I feel a little better after sleeping in this morning with the aid of NyQuil. Now it is time for some chicken noodle soup, some more V8 Vegetable & Fruit Juice, and perhaps some Stash Peppermint Tea. I have a busy day tomorrow, so I need all the help I can get!

[[ sicky essentials. ]]

Because of the timing this scene from The Big Bang Theory comes to mind... "Happy Valentine's Day."(luckily, Pat is not sick).

weekend adventures 51

It seems like we fit a lot of weekend in to a very short period of time this week!

saturday
We got up in the morning and headed to Portland for my little sisters State Cheerleading Competition which was later in the day. We got to town pretty early so that we could run some errands and eat some lunch before watching them perform. Pat is going to Florida to work the NBA All Stars game, so we had to go to the Adidas Employee Store to get him some gear. That place was a cluster... so tiny, crowded, and barely any product inside but he did manage to find a couple of shirts and some pants that will be perfect. I got a Blazers shirt also since I didn't have anything already. Next we stumbled upon the Widmer Brewery/restaurant and decided to get some lunch and a drink. We shared a baked pretzel and pastrami sandwhich, yum yum. This is to date the only brew pub, or pub in general I have ever been in that does NOT have a frier! It was crazy.

[[ widmer brewery. ]]

Next we drove a mile up the road to the Memorial Coliseum where the competition was being held, located where my parents were sitting, and joined them. Both sets of my parents were there, along with my cousin Tabby, Landon her adorable little baby, and both my brothers. After Westview performed the boys decided to walk back to Widmer for a drink while the rest of us stayed behind and watched the rest of the competition. They got back just in time to hear Westview announced as the winners! Everyone was really excited. We stuck around for a while to congratulate the little one and say goodbye and then all parted ways. I am really happy I finally got to attend a state competition, especially to see Meagan win her last one ever since she is graduating this year.

[[ state cheerleading competition. ]]

saturday night
My head was killing me at this point, so Pat made some plans for dinner and we headed over to the East Side to go to Fire on the Mountain. When we first got there it was packed because the Blazer game was in overtime, or double overtime, not sure. When they lost (lame) it cleared out pretty quick, and after getting a table, some water, and Excedrine I was feeling much better. Brad and Alia got there, we ordered some dinner, and the boys got a pitcher of beer. I liked that place, it was pretty chill. My favorite thing about the East Side is that you can be super dressed up or wearing a sweatshirt and it makes no difference.

After dinner we headed over to a bowling alley to crash a birthday party for one of Pats old friends Donovan. Megan came over to meet us and we watching everyone play a couple rounds eventually stealing an abandoned lane for ourselves. At this point it was after midnight and we wanted to meet up with Tony who had gone to a car show earlier in the night with some of his friends, so we scooped him up and then went to a bar called The By & By. There is a killer grilled cheese food cart right behind the bar called Grilled Cheese Grill so we walked over there after the bar shut down and the guys ordered some bomb grilled cheeses that they were nice enough to share with us. I am not sure exactly what we were eating, but there was definitely bacon involved. Also, some girl tried to interview me with a rolled up newspaper, I had no idea what was going on. The best thing about this place is that you sit in an old school bus to eat your food!! It was awesome!

After taking a lot of silly pictures, or attempting to at least, we headed to Megan's apartment to end the night. We finally all went to bed sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 in the am.

[[ bowling. being silly at grilled cheese grill. ]]

sunday
We got a really late start since sleeping in was a must, but eventually the four of us went over to Washington Square briefly to grab a few things and then Me, Pat, and Tony took off for home. We stopped in Bridgeport for some lunch and Macaroni Grill, and then stopped in Woodburn to drop off Tony and see Loki for a bit. Finally we made it home, ate some more dinner, watched some 30 Rock, and called it a night.

[[ misc sunday pictures. puppies. ]]