Making our Apartment Home

Mirav again!  Eric and I had a very eventful weekend.  We went out with some friends on Friday night and got a tour of downtown bars.  We went to 4 different places and had a lot of fun.

Then on Saturday we ran some errands (you'll see the results in pictures in a moment) and then went over to a friend's house to watch the UofO football game.  We brought a dip that was inspired by Megan's Skyline dip.  I made a Cincinnati style chili last week so I brought the left overs to make the dip.  It was a big hit and everyone enjoyed.  We watch the game with a very superstitious guy who made us sit in the same seats the whole game.  And since UofA did well while he ate a salsa mix called Texas Caviar, he ate it the whole game... and then made other people eat it.  It was very funny and we had a very good time.

Eric's car in the front of our friend's house - fall is awesome!

Today we hung out around the house and cleaned.  We went a bought picture frames yesterday at Michael's to frame our pictures of the 4 seasons in Portland.  You can see them below... they go spring, summer, fall, winter.  From beginning to end. :)

We hung  up the picture frames that we had from the old house which has collages - the far left is from my trip to Australia and New Zealand with Samara, then its me and Eric and the dogs, then its family and friends, and the last one on the right is just me and Eric.  We also put a table out there and have a lamp and a picture of me and Eric from Grandma Joanne's birthday last year.

Lastly, we finally bought a desk yesterday, and hung my 12 apostles picture above it.

Only a little bit more and the place will be done.  We still have some things to unpack, but for the most part we're done.

Changing Plates

So we went last week to get new licenses and plates.  We finally got around to changing them today.  You can see below how our cars became residents of OR. :)

Eric's car was first

Eric changing the plate on the Outlander

Yay OR plates!

Eric already got his licence in the mail and now we're just waiting for mine.  We're almost done with all the formalities!

Couch!!

It's Mirav again, and we got an exciting delivery today.  Our couch is finally here!  I'm actually sitting on it as I type this entry.

So they called Monday to say the couch was in and scheduled delivery for today.  So I cleared the area this morning before they got here.

When they first got here, they brought up this big bag.  Apparently it had the cushions inside of it.

Then there were lots of other parts that came up next.

Then there was lots of work to bring it all together to give us....

 

One beautiful couch!!! Now everyone can come visit and have a place to sleep!

Moms!

Our moms made the journey to the beautiful Pacfic Northwest to visit their favorite children this weekend. It was a short trip, but we made the most of it. Mirav picked them up from the airport Friday afternoon. After checking into their hotel in downtown, we walked around until we found a nice little Italian restaurant. I forgot my camera in the car so there are no picture of this. Sorry.

 

Saturday morning we ate at the Cafe Du Berry. They are renowned for their french toast. It was almost like a bread pudding. Mirav's first plate still had raw egg in the middle, gross. I did not care for it, too soggy.

 

Next we headed over to PSU to go to the Saturday Farmers Market. Mirav and Jill were negotiating the parking machine.

 

My mom bought some lavender soaps. The lady in front of her wouldn't stop chatting and she was annoyed

Mirav refuses to make a normal face when I point the camera at her

The moms

 

After the Farmers Market we went up to OHSU,  which is at the top of a big hill above the city. Awesome views. You can see mount hood in the background. It was a super clear day, great weather. 

 

Me and my mom with Mt St Helens in the background

 

Me and Mirav. You can see the Airieltram on the right. It starts at the river and goes up to where we were. Lots of fun. 

We headed out to the rose garden to show the moms where we got engaged. The roses were mostly dormant because it's so cold already. But there were a few nice ones. 

This is our engagement bench. Smile Mirav :)

Next up was the Japanese gardens

Waiting for the tram after singing happy birthday to Aunt Merrill

This spot was my first choice to propose

They had an Origami demonstration. Mirav made a crane and Jill made a penguin. They were friends

We took the dogs for a walk after we got back from the gardens. Fall is awesome

We went to a brewery for dinner. That beer was pretty good

The dogs LOVE my mom

Tami was out of his mind happy having the moms in town

After dinner we went up to Mississippi Ave to get some ice cream at Ruby Jewel. They kept giving us free hot coco samples.  After ice cream, we called it a night. It was a long day.

The moms made it to the airport around 7am Sunday morning. We went back home and slept until 11. Thanks for visiting moms!

Fried Pies

We planned our whole week of dinners n Sunday night. Tonight for dinner we had salad, grilled chicken, a cheesy flatbread and we shared a giant artichoke. Mirav ate most of the artichoke, but I thought it was good too. After dinner we cleaned up and of course a question sprang to mind, "What's for dessert?" The answer, Fried Pies. It's exactly what it sounds like. We decided to head up to the food carts that are 8 blocks down Hawthorne on 12 ave and grab some Whiffies Fried Pies. We had them during our house hunting trip and they were pretty awesome.

 

It's cold out, so Tami was outfitted with his winter coat, complete with pockets and reflective stripe for easy visibility. It was really easy to snap a photo of him because after we put the jacket on him, he was frozen like this for a couple minutes until we put the leash on him and drug him out the door. 

 

First stop, Whiffies. A staple of the 12th and Hawthorne food cart mall. All they serve is fried pies. I had a peanut butter and chocolate pie. They deep fry it and hand it to you still warm. By the time you're halfway done, you're pretty much just licking chocolate peanut butter pudding with bits of crust off of the foil wrapper. I still have chocolate on my face as I write this. Worth it. 

Mirav decided against a fried pie. I know, weird right? She headed over to this place. The name sounds fancy, but it's just a trailer with a flat tire that makes crepes. You can't fool me frenchie! Mirav got a Nutella and Strawberry crepe which wasn't even done until after I finished my pie. So she ate hers on the walk home. When she could eat no more, she twisted my arm to finish what was left. It was very good. Overall a very satisfying dessert.

Kitchen is all done!

Well, for the first time this is Mirav posting.  We finally have one room that doesn't look like a storage closet full of boxes, so I wanted to show it off. :)
Emily left today (sad face) and Eric and I went back to target to get some more things for the apartment.  We came back and continued getting organized and putting things away.

This is what the kitchen now looks like.  The 'trash' utensil holder has returned!!  Now that Eric is a coffee drinker, the timer has been set to make a fresh pot in the morning.  At the very back of the picture you can see an opening where our pantry is.  We bought a skinny bookcase and put it back there for extra storage.  Apparently you can have too many kitchen gadgets.

Our old kitchen table works nicely in the new space.  We'll keep 3 of the chairs around the table with the 4th used at the office desk.  We keep the side closest to the counter clear so we can walk by and use it as extra prep space (as you saw, there isn't much free counter space).  Anyway, the flowers are from the farmers market.  We picked them up yesterday and they brighten the room and smell wonderful.  You can see just a tiny sliver of our entry way unit, that we hang doggie leashes on the side.  It's a designated place for purses and keys and extra storage.
We also got a whiteboard to help us plan on Sunday for dinner's we want the rest of the week based on the veggies we got at the farmer's market on Saturday.  There was so much good stuff - we ended up getting some salad ingredients (lettuce mix, cucumber, yellow bell pepper), zucchini, broccoli, artichoke, corn, onions and little baby multi-colored potatoes.  We're sure to eat well this week.  Next week hopefully our mom's will be here to help us pick stuff out and plan the week!

Portland Sushi

Mirav, Emily decided Friday was a sushi night. After some research we decided on Meiji En in southeast Portland. It's about 2 miles north of our place. We had two unsuccessful sushi attempts so far in Portland, so we were hoping this wouldn't be a bust.

 

It was kind of a dumpy place. Mirav said it looked authentic.I thought it just looked tacky. There was a small replica of a Japanese garden with tiny plastic toy farm animals in it that I thought was especially tacky.

 

There was also giant ugly fish in the fish tank. Luckily, this is not what we ate. 

 

They brought out the volcano roll and the plate was on fire!! This one was scallops and I did not really care for it. Emily got to eat all of this one.

This is Mirav's Hawaiian roll. It was good except for the mango, which does not belong in sushi. The rest of the sushi was very good. The salmon was awesome! We will be going back to this place. 

Moving - Unpacking the Pods

We asked for the Pods to be dropped off at 8am on Monday, so we would have time to unload them. The moving company told us they would be there between 10 and 2. They were dropped off at 3pm. Plenty of time to unload. As soon as they dropped the Pod on the sidewalk, it started to rain. 

 

 

Full Pod

 

Empty apartment

Empty Pod

 

Full apartment

It was a hard move. Very tiring and we still have a lot to do. Mirav is working hard to get everything unpacked so we can start enjoying our new place. I will update with more unpacking pictures as we make progress. We love you all and are missing AZ already.

Moving - We're Here!

 

Our building from the street

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Living room and kitchen area

Bedroom and closet

 

 Pickles on the patio

 

We stuck our bed in the moving pods so we slept on the inflatable mattress. After an hour or so, it was no longer inflated and we were sleeping on the ground. It was terrible. 

Moving - Saturday/Sunday

 

Mount Shasta

 

We stayed at the Shilo Inn in Medford Oregon. It was a four star establishment for sure. Giant sign on a pole screams high class. We had two beds and slept well after 11 hours of driving. 

The only picture I managed to get of myself the whole time we were moving

 

Up and driving. The scenery was awesome

 

It got really foggy in the canyons. Very ominous