whs bringing home another win

I would like to start off this week by saying congratulations (again) to my little sister and her cheer team for bringing home the 2012 Oregon State Cheer Champions title in their division!! Great job ladies.

[[ seniors. team. meagan. winners. ]]

Saturday me and Pat drove up to Portland to finally watch a state competition in person. This is the first year I have actually been able to attend this particular event since I always have something else super important going on, like Tiff & Jason's wedding last year, for example. They will now go on to compete in California at Nationals, but this was my last chance to watch my little sister Meagan perform since she is a senior and will be graduating this year. That fact is insane by the way.

I found their routine video on YouTube, so I am posting it below, along with the awards ceremony where the first place winners were announced. :) They got a score of 68.33 which was one of the highest scores of the day in any division only behind the first and second place Co-Ed team winners. (link to scores). After a big win last year they definitely defended their title well.

routine

awards

Just in case, here is a link to a post about last years State Competition (2011) that I did.

the hunger games - wrap up

Yesterday while I was working on my image heavy post I finished listening to The Hunger Games series. Each book took about two work days to get through, so it was a pretty quick listen. Despite hearing from someone else who hated the ending, I actually liked it. I thought they finished exactly how they were supposed to, (though I did think the epilogue was a bit unnecessary, but no matter). It would have never worked with a fairytale ending. I can't really say much more than that without giving anything away, but I had a good time with them and the author did an amazing job of creating a new world for readers to emerse themselves in.

After quickly finishing the first book I kind of had a feeling of where the series would go, but there were definitely lots of twists I did not see coming, and of course I could have never actually guessed how it would go from point a to my assumed version of point b. My main criticism was the love triangle throughout the books which I could have happily done without, not completely because some of it was necessary for character development, but perhaps a little less heavy handed. Luckily there was enough of a plot outside of that detail to keep me interested. So, overall I would say it was an entertaining, disturbing, thought provolking, and can't-put-this-down type of "read" with plenty of interesting turns and details, and I would recommend it to anyone interested.

I will watch the movie eventually I am sure, but based on the marketing I think it is going to be a washed down teen version. Thats what I get for reading a popular book among teens haha, oops. The book has young characters, but the story is really about the brutality of a government and revolution, not sure I anticipate that being conveyed too intensely in the film(s), but, I can always hope they keep some darkness to them.

[[ district seals, from google images. ]]

brasada ranch :: part V

Sunday afternoon before the Superbowl me and Pat decided to go for a little hike and found ourselves on top of Spirit Rock getting some much needed sunshine. Here are some of the pictures we took of the view and our little adventure.

[[ spirit rock hike. ]]

weekend adventures 50

friday
Me and Pat both took Friday off to head over the pass for a long weekend adventure, unfortunately I had to work all morning and a bit in the car/at a Starbucks along the way, but it was super sunny and gorgeous. By the time we got to the house it was dark so we made some drinks and chilled.

[[ friday afternoon drive over to bend. working on freelance in the car nbd. ]]

saturday
We drove in to downtown Bend in the afternoon to do some "beer tasting" since there are so many breweries close together. We only made it to three but they were all super generous with their tastings so we were good to go. We also had delicious lunch at Deschutes and for the first time ever I actually liked the French Onion soup. Since it was so pretty outside we walked around the Mirror Pond for a while (freezing) before heading to dinner at Diegos, which had the best guacamole ever!!

[[ self guided brewery tour in downtown bend. ]]

sunday
We got up in the morning and went for a hike, I will do another post about that tomorrow since we took a lot of pictures, but I included a few as a preview. The rest of the day was all superbowl. Pretty self explanatory.

 

[[ previews of our little hike. ]]

[[ superbowl sunday = beer + ribs + bad commercials. ]]

That was pretty much it, I think the pictures do most of the explaining.

30 minute break

I had intended to start with my weekend adventures post today, but I got a quick turn around project so I need to focus on that. It has been a very busy and stressful day but since Pat is awesome he cooked me this delicious dinner and I got to take a quick break to enjoy it and watch some 30 Rock. Thanks babe. :)

[[ teriyaki salmon. homemade fried rice. broccoli. ]]

and were off

Me and Pat are running away to Brasada for a long weekend before he heads to Florida for work. It is supposed to be sunny and nice all weekend, fingers crossed.

midweek inspiration 33

I have been obsessing over these globes by Wendy Gold of Image Nations for a long time now, so I figured I might as well post them finally. These are super inspiration because I would absolutely love to make one of these for me and Pat to mark off some of places we have gone and would like to go to. I have one globe already, this reminds me to collect more! Below are some of my favorites of hers.

[[ where the wild things are. oh the places you'll go. custom. ceres. ]]