now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in

The weather has been a bit indecisive all day... to storm, or to sun... When me and Pat were heading in to Bend to run some errands and the sun was setting I caught some pretty interesting pictures of the two battling each other. On the bottom there is a lovely and clear sunset, and on top some mean looking storm clouds. I love the views out here, even when they are stormy.

[[ storm clouds. ]]

the bend ale trail - part II

Continuing on with my post from yesterday, here is the rest of our Saturday...

4) Boneyard Beer
As we headed towards downtown we made a stop at Boneyard Beer which is one of Pats local favorites at the moment. He loves pretty much everything, including their Diablo Rojo En Fuego, which is the regular Rojo blended with ghost peppers which makes it really really spicy! I hate spice so I can't handle it, but he is up for the challenge. I really love their normal Diablo Rojo, which is a red, as I am sure you can imagine. Right now all Boneyard has is a little tasting room attached to their brewery so we pretty much stopped by, filled some growlers, and moved on our way.

[[ boneyard. ]]

5) Silver Moon
Finally we made our way in to downtown and decided to stop at Silver Moon first. Again, me and Pat shared a taster tray of beers. We had been to Silver Moon before once in the past on a self guided downtown brew tour of sorts and liked it, so we knew what to expect. Their brewery is a little more on the divey side, but they turn out some good beer. We have yet to try their food though. We will definitely be in this place a lot more in the future, they have a stage inside for local bands, and it seems like a fun place to spend a Friday or Saturday night. Plus their brews are not too shabby.

[[ silvermoon. ]]

6) Bend Brewing Co. 
At this point Sierra had to take off for a little while to check on her pup, so me and Pat walked up the street to Bend Brewing Co. to grab a snack and another beer. We had also been here a few times before, and had previously made the mistake of sharing one of their taster trays, which is HUGE. Nothing wrong with that at all... except for when you have been drinking beer all day and just want one beer, not three to yourself (that is probably a slight exaggeration, but their pours are really big). Instead we each grabbed a beer and ordered some sweet potato fries to snack on, which were delicious. I have eaten here a few times in the past and have always found the food to be very tasty, although their atmosphere is a little dead on the weekends for my taste. I would consider this a great brewery for some lunch/dinner and a drink, they make some good beers and great food, but for more nightlife, take off after and make your way down the road.

[[ bend brewing co. ]]

7) Deschutes Brewery
Last but not least, we met up with Sierra again at Deschutes Brewery downtown. I had wanted to do their actual brew tour at the brewery in Old Mill, but since we were downtown already and needed some dinner, we decided to save that one for another time. Of course, being the staple Bend brewery, and one of the largest in Oregon, with locations in both Bend and Portland, me and Pat had been here already a ton of times. Not to mention that you can always find their beer at the store, and the guys at my previous job had a bit of a Mirror Pond obsession... so lets just say I am very familiar with what Deschutes has to offer. That being said, it is still one of my, and apparently everyones, favorites. We all had one last beer, and me and Pat split the elk burger a salad and some French onion soup (Pats favorite). As usual, dinner and drinks were delicious.

[[ deschutes. ]]

Seven breweries off of the list down, we called it a night. It was a fun and extremely filling day, yet we still have three more to go, which renders our Bend Ale Trail attempt "to be continued... " I will keep you posted on our progress as we finish up in the future...

the bend ale trail - part I

On Saturday morning me and Pat got up bright and early, headed in to town, ran a few errands, and then made our way to Good Life Brewing Co. to meet up with my old friend Sierra and start The Bend Ale Trail. Me and Pat had been to most of the breweries on the list ourselves in the past, some several times, but never for the purpose of completing the official Ale Trail monitored by the Visit Bend office downtown. We ended up making it to 7 out of 10 on Saturday, but it was an all day/night affair. 


1) Good Life Brewing Co. 
We started at Good Life Brewing Co. for some lunch and went with a taster tray. Their food was pretty yummy, me and Pat shared a monster burrito, and the beer was pretty good as well, I would certainly give this place another visit, if not for the food and beer, for the mix of old rock songs playing over their speakers.

[[ good life. ]]

2) Cascade Lakes Brewing Co. 
Next we went to Cascade Lakes, which I did not realize was the brewery responsible for Blonde Bombshell, which you can find at every grocery store in Oregon (that could be a slight exaggeration, but it is pretty widely recognized). I had also tried their Slippery Slope over Thanksgiving, which I liked. We did not have any food here, but shared another taster tray and neither me or Pat were interested in any of their beers. The space was cool and I noticed a loft with some pool tables, but this brewery is a bit out of the way for what they have to offer, and when there are so many good breweries within such a close proximity, you have to be one of the best. I do hear that there is Tuesday night Bingo which is especially popular with the local crowd, so never say never, I may end up back here one of these days.

[[ cascade lakes. ]]

3) Brew Werks
Third we drove over to Old Mill to visit Brew Werks which has a few of their own beers and also offers several other local beers on tap. Again, we did not sample any of the food, which smelled very smokey, but we did try some of their beers. Nothing really stood out, so we didn't hang around long before moving on to our next location. I don't really have anything of note to say about this place... though I did chase some geese around outside before we went in. The location is a little random, its sort of in an office building, and the space itself is pretty small so I might skip this one in the future.

[[ brew werks. ]]

I will finish up the rest of our Ale Trail adventures tomorrow...

weekend adventures 65

Our second weekend in Central Oregon ended up being extremely beer-centric, starting out with a work event, and culminating with our first attempt at The Bend Ale Trail.


friday night
I had to go to a chamber dinner for work Friday evening, which was basically a bunch of local businesses getting together and awarding each other for various things, as well as raising awareness about their companies. Each of the tables at the event was decorated by a different local business, ours was a brewery called Phat Matt's, so we had lots of beers, chocolate, popcorn, and balloons. Some others I remember were a Mexican restaurant called Mazatlan, so that table had margaritas and a piñata, a fire station, so the table had fireman themed items such as legos and a Curious George book, and a gardening store, so that table had gloves and watering pails with flowers. At the end of the event, which was catered, we all got to divy up the swag at the table and take it home. I ended up with three beers and the balloons. Go to a work function... bring home a party... or at least thats what I told Pat when I walked in the door with beers and balloons in hand. Not too shabby.

[[ a few pictures from the chamber dinner: phat matt's. balloons. fire table. mazatlan table. ]]

saturday
Me and Pat took a stab at the Bend Ale Trail with my long lost friend Sierra who I had not seen since Freshman year of college down in Ashland, aside from running in to her briefly once in Newport a few years ago. We met up for some lunch, got started, and ended up spending the entire day together. I will get in to the specifics of The Ale Trail in another post or two starting tomorrow, but it was really really good catching up with Sierra, and I think I will be hanging out with her quite a bit now that we are over here.

[[ bend ale trail brochure. ]]

sunday
We had a few errands to run in the morning, which ended with Pat finally purchasing a Whirly Pop, which is an extremely ridiculous popcorn maker. He was seriously so excited to make some popcorn, such a nerd. However, the majority of the day was spent relaxing, which was much needed after all of that beer Saturday!

[[ pat making popcorn. ]]

fire on the mountain

Hooray Friday!! I have successfully made it through my second full week at work and everything is going really well so far. Tomorrow me and Pat are meeting up with an old friend from Ashland who I haven't seen in years and years to take our first stab at the Bend Ale Trail. Cheers to the weekend, and wish us luck.

[[ our beautiful sunset over mt. jefferson. ]]

a little local side work

I am a busy lady who is constantly working on something... and I realize that I am absolutely terrible at posting my actual design work on the blog! Perhaps that will be one of the New Years Resolutions for 2013 (which I am totally slacking on since I have yet to write any out and we are well in to January). Anyway, I have been doing a little bit of freelance work for a local restaurant called Barrio and stumbled across my quick little ad the other day in Central Oregon Magazine. Check it out.

[[ barrio ad in central oregon magazine. ]]

look up

On our Tumalo hike I took two pictures of the sky that didn't really fit in with my post from yesterday, but I still wanted to share them. First I got a plane flying above us while we were in the woods, and on the way back to the car the moon decided to make an early appearance. Don't forget to look up every once in a while, you never know what you might catch a glimpse of. Once of these days I will get a good shot of the moon at night... one of these days...

[[ air travel. the moon. ]]

tumalo state park

On our first weekend in Bend we spent Saturday (1/19) afternoon exploring Tumalo State Park. Here are some of the pictures we took of our little adventure. (The lighting was really intense, so the coloring on these pictures did not turn out the best, hopefully next time I can get some better shots).

[[ the park. geese. posing. the river. kayakers. me. our surroundings. the cliffs. pat. tall trees. colder and colder. icy rocks. snow & ice before turning back. ]] 

weekend adventures 64 our first weekend in central oregon

Our first weekend in Central Oregon was amazing! We went on a little outdoor adventure, tried out a new local brewery, relaxed at home, had an amazing breakfast, did some shopping, and a little more unpacking. 


saturday (1/19)
Me and Pat decided that since we are over here we want to become a lot more active and do a lot more hiking and outdoorsy things, so Saturday morning we got up, ate some breakfast, packed up a day pack, and headed out into the woods to do some exploring.

We went to Tumalo State Park, which was really really beautiful. We "hiked" around along the river for a few miles, and then turned back because it was getting really icy, but we took a ton of pictures, which I will post on their own. We even passed some kayakers who were very friendly.

[[ tumalo state park. ]]

Once we got back to the main park we sat for a little while and enjoyed the sunshine before deciding to drive in to Bend to grab an early dinner and some beers. We went to a newer brewery called Crux Fermentation Project that my coworker told me about, and I feel in love with it! The food was good, the beer even better, and the atmosphere was amazing. I am really in to their version of a Flemish Red. After the sun went down and we shared a taster tray and ate some paninis we made our way home to relax for the rest of the night.

[[ crux fermentation project: menu. bar. taster treys. happy pat. happy me. flemish red. ]]

sunday (1/20)
In the morning we got up and headed back in to Bend to meet Pat's dad and step mom at The Victorian Cafe for breakfast. We had eaten there once before years ago, and I remembered it being delicious, but I had no idea it was that good! They literally have about twelve different varieties of eggs benedict to choose from, and amazing bloody mary's. Afterwards we hoped over to REI so that Pat could finally pick up a Camelback, and then headed out to his dads place for dinner, before heading home to have a lazy rest of our day.

[[ bloody mary. fire pit. eggs benedict. old mill. ]]

It was a great weekend. One of the best I have had in a long time. 

snowflakes

The first morning we woke up here it was seven degrees and we noticed some real snowflakes frozen to the banister and perfectly preserved on our balcony!! I had no idea they really looked like this. So cute!!

[[ snowflakes!! ]]

moving in

We moved over the pass on January 2nd, and have been doing a lot since then that I am excited to post about, but I have to go back in time to get things up to speed first. I will start with our moving weekend and work my way up from there. 

In the morning of the second, the movers showed up, and within a few hours everything we owned, aside from one suitcase with some necessities, was gone. It was a really weird feeling having strangers take away all of our things, and as always, I was sad to see our house empty knowing that we would never live there again. As soon as our things were gone, me, Pat, and Rory, who had graciously offered to help us move, stuffed ourselves in the car which was packed with as much as we could fit. I was literally smushed in the backseat and surrounded by blankets which actually made it a pretty comfortable drive.

[[ our empty house: livingroom. kitchen. office. bedroom. spareroom. closet. livingroom/kitchen. hallway. ]]

[[ the stuffed moving truck. me packed in to the subaru and ready to go. ]]

We just happened to be moving on the weekend that it had dumped a ton of snow, so the pass was really really icy and it took us a while to get to our place. We even passed a truck that lost control and was only saved from going over the cliff because of the bumper of packed snow on the side of the road... sketchy. This definitely made me feel better about hiring movers to do the heavy lifting and transporting. Rory's friend came over, and we all ate some dinner, hottubbed, and drank some champagne that my Mom bought me and Pat in honor of our big move. I should mention that while we are looking for places in Bend, me and Pat are living in Redmond in a home that is up for sale owned by his parents. Hopefully in the Springtime we will be able to find a place of our own.

[[ the first night: me and rory being weirdos. champagne toast to our new house (after the hottub, yes, we have a hottub). ]]

[[ brrr. the view out our diningroom window. ]]

The rest of the weekend was simply spent unpacking and trying to get everything in order as much as possible before we went back to Corvallis to clean our old place, have a going away party, and then make our final trip over the pass to our new home (which I discussed in my "Goodbye Corvallis" post).

goodbye corvallis

As I have mentioned a few times before, at the end of December me and Pat were making preparations to move and saying goodbye to good friends, and the town of Corvallis. A place that I had reluctantly grown to love. Even a year prior I had been aching to get out of our small college town and start a life with Pat somewhere new, and although I was ready for a new career, when it came down to the prospect of actually leaving, I was a little sad to leave it all behind. 

The two of us had really begun our relationship there, we had shared four residences over almost seven years there, we had both struggled with and graduated from college there, and made a ton of great friends and amazing memories along the way. So in the end, I was sad to see Corvallis go, but excited about the prospect of starting over together in a new place that we really really love. As we drove away from our long term home town for the last time, I was very reflective on each of the places I had lived, and who I was at that time. Although I am ready to collect new memories and residences in Bend, Corvallis Oregon will always hold a special place in my heart, so I owed it a little goodbye post.


Here are a few pictures from our last few outings right before moving. 
I wish I would have taken some pictures of our going away party, because we had a really good turnout, but I was so exhausted from packing and cleaning that I forgot. Thank you again to everyone who came out.

[[ cloud & kelly's. ]]

[[ sada sushi. ]]

[[ snugbar. ]]

[[ murphey's. ]]

Places I am going to miss/remember fondly:
Block15, Cloud & Kellys, Fairbanks, Snugbar, Murphey's, Bar 101, Aomatsu, Reeser Stadium, Monroe St., The Elements Building, the Waterfront downtown and my favorite place to sit, Francesco's, Sharon's, Tommy's, University Hero, McMenamins, American Dream, Crow Bar, and The Crow's Nest, the 35th street house, the entire OSU Campus, and yes, even though very reluctantly, I have to make mention of The Peacock and La Conga (whatever its called now) because no matter how horrible they are, I have many great memories at both.

Goodbye for now. 

new years eve

We celebrated NYE this year at The Nines Hotel in Portland with a bunch of friends and several hotel rooms. The night definitely got a little bit ridiculous, but it was a ton of fun overall! Here are some pictures from the night taken from my phone and from Tiffany's homemade photobooth set up.

[[ the view of pioneer square. no mini fridge, no problem. getting ready. me and mylanta. girls. meguenther. me and pat. my best girls. me and alena. ]]

[[ pictures from tiff's photobooth: the group. ladies. pat and tiff. ladies. strong. the back. tiff and jason. dave and hannah. ]]