a day at the farm

Last Monday me and a few coworkers spent the day exploring local farms to get a sense of what kind of partnership opportunities are out there. I brought my camera along and took a ton of pictures of the various animals and crops at each of the three farms we visited. We were even provided with a delicious vegetarian lunch made solely with products from each of our stops by our Farm to Fork tour guides. Here are some of the best shots. Who knew pigs were so photogenic, I probable have twenty pictures of just those little guys.

[[ farm 1: amy and the farm dogs. piggies. sheep and a baby lamb. friendly cows. the gorgeous view. the chickens being chased by the puppy and the pig who thought he was a puppy. look at those eyes. prairie dog. farm 2: more piggies. the greenhouse getting ready to sprout. roosters. goats. our delicious and fresh lunch. farm 3: greens. the chickens running wild. ]]

 Tough day at the office huh?

smith rock part III

On Saturday me and Pat took our friends Rory and Alena to Smith Rock to attempt the Misery Ridge trail once again. That trail is such a pain in the ass, but I am getting a little bit better... slowly. However, we decided to take the same route down instead of walking around the entire rock, and though three miles straight up is tough, three miles straight down is terrifying! As someone with a fear of heights, I think I prefer the long route.

[[ bird watching. a few before pictures. the boys climbing to the top. birds of prey at eye level. the views. me and alena. digging for babies. pat taking a break. the boys being... awkward. ]]

weekend adventures 70

Over the weekend our friends Rory and Alena came to visit and we did a ton of running around, including another trip to Smith Rock for our second attempt at the Misery Ridge trail. It was really good to see our friends, but I did sort of feel like I needed a little weekend from my weekend afterwards. 

friday
Since it was Spring Break the two of them got in to town early, so when I got home from work we headed straight to Worthy Brewing for some dinner and drinks. After dinner we came back home and stayed up way too late catching up.

saturday
We had originally made plans to get up and head to Smith Rock in the morning, something that I was definitely dreading when I woke up, but we decided to go for it despite being so tired. First we headed in to Redmond for breakfast at Black Bear Diner and then out to Terrebonne. By the way, Black Bear has some pretty amazing blueberry pancakes!

[[ breakfast at black bear diner. ]]

Once again I took a bunch of shots at Smith Rock that I will get around to posting later, but in the meantime I got some pretty entertaining ones from my phone. Let's just say Pat and Rory are pretty good at freeze frame jump shots. Once we finished up we stopped at The Depot, which is a little restaurant in an old train station close by. We grabbed some snacks, which were delicious, and then headed home to relax for a few hours before getting ready for dinner.

[[ posing for pictures at smith rock. our failed jump shots. rory & pats successful ones. the depot. ]]

We decided to take them out to Crux for dinner which at this point is probably our favorite brewery in town. Me and Alena also snuck in to Safeway to grab Rory some birthday paraphernalia since his was the next week. We ended up with cupcakes, balloons (one which read "it's a boy!") and a Justin Beiber card. You know, the usual.

[[ crux. early birthday presents for rory. ]]

sunday
In the morning we headed back in to Bend to try a new restaurant called Jackson's Corner that a coworker told me about. It was delicious. They had the best mimosa I have probably ever had with fresh squeezed orange juice. Since it was closer to lunch time me and Alena split a turkey sandwich and Pat got a tuna salad. Everything was really fresh and tasty, we will definitely be back.

[[ jacksons corner. ]]

After lunch we headed in to Old Mill and ended up stopping in to Level 2, a little martini bar above some of the shops. They have some really interesting libations and a really good happy hour appetizer menu. I want to come check this place out again some time for dinner. Once we shared a few drinks and some mussels, we drove back home, Rory and Alena headed back to the valley, and me and Pat enjoyed the rest of our Sunday.

[[ level 2. ]]

to chief from mylanta part II

Tonight our friends Rory and Alena are coming to visit for the weekend! Me and Pat are both super excited, and judging from this text that I received a few weeks ago, I am guessing that they are too. Bring on the festivities! Here was Alena's first masterpiece back in February.

[[ my second chalk drawing from alena at block 15. ]]

dress up

March 14th was my cousin Nicole's 29th birthday, and I dug up this little ditty to post on Instagram for her. I am not sure what year this was, but if I had to guess I would say I was probably in third or fourth grade and we were playing dress up at my grandma's bridal store Trudy's in San Jose California. I have always loved this picture. Once again, Happy Birthday to my beautiful cousin Nicole. :)

[[ me and nicole playing dress up at grandma's store back in the day. ]]

go home weather, your drunk

On March 8th the weather around here took an interesting turn, but I did not get around to posting about it until now since there was so much other stuff going on that week. 

In the morning it looked like this and was about 20 degrees...

[[ am. ]]

And by the time I got off work it looked a little something like this and was in the mid 50s...

[[ pm. ]]

What is the deal!?

one street down

I met Pat in Remond today for lunch at a little cafe called One Street Down, which was delicious. I got half a Caprese sandwich with tomato, basil, mozzarella, balsamic vinaigrette and the split pea soup, and Pat got the club sandwich which also looked quite tasty. We also ordered a snickers latte... Amazing. Based on the lunch I can't wait to try their breakfast some time.

[[ menu. sandwich. latte. coffee. ]]

weekend adventures 69

We didn't have any plans for the weekend, but we ended up doing quite a bit of exploring regardless, including two more stops on the Bend Ale Trail.

friday
After work me and Pat decided to head out to Sisters to try the "extra credit" brewery on our Bend Ale Trail checklist, Three Creeks. They are pretty much in the Five Pine Lodge parking lot, which I thought was a bit unusual since Five Pine appears to be a nice and secluded wedding venue online, but I digress. The place was pretty packed when we got in, but we managed to score a table pretty quick and ordered some drinks. Pat got a special Irish Stout (since St. Patty's Day was Sunday), and I got a sampler tray since I had never had any of their stuff before. There were several that I thought were pretty good, and the food wasn't too bad either. If you live anywhere in Central Oregon you know that their beers can also be found at the store, and I have to hand it to them, I really like their branding. It does not seem like something that would come out of little old Sisters. Unfortunately we forgot to get our "passports" stamped, so we will definitely be back again.

[[ three creeks. ]]

saturday
We decided to go in to Bend, to get some shopping done, and then grab some drinks at Good Life, the brewery we had started at when we first attempted the Ale Trail with my friend Sierra. There is a little tasting room for Volcano Vineyards right next door, so we took a little detour inside to see what they had to offer. It was a pretty sweet little place with some really interesting chandeliers and pretty yummy wine. I particularly enjoyed their take on peach sangria which was poured out of a tap. Me and Pat ended up buying a growler of it for later and then making our way over to Good Life for some food. They have some delicious snacks, like bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers, and the best beer pretzel we have found so far in town (and we have tried a ton of them). We ended up grabbing a few beers and sticking around for dinner before making our way home to enjoy some of our sangria and watch movies.

[[ koalas march, one of my treats from shopping at world market. ]]

[[ volcano vineyards. ]]

[[ good life brewing co. ]]

sunday
In honor of St. Patty's Day Pat made us a delicious bangers and mash inspired breakfast while we blasted some Drop Kick Murphey's and Flogging Molly. Since the last stop on our Ale Trail was McMenamins Old St. Francis School downtown, we decided to go there for the rest of the evening, so we put on our green and headed in to Bend once again. Me and Pat were both so used to being in a college town where everyone goes crazy on any holiday that involves drinking, that we were really surprised not that many people were in to it here. In fact, other than the small bar inside of the school, there were not many festivities to be had, so after lunch at the restaurant, we called it a night early and decided to head back home to enjoy the rest of our lazy Sunday. Hopefully we have a little better luck finding something festive to engage in next year... come on Bend, you can do better than little old Corvallis.

[[ bangers and mash breakfast. ]]

[[ a st. patty's day beer. ]]