Rehearsal Dinner

Our rehearsal dinner was on Friday at a family-friend's house out in Independence. The weather, once again, was perfect (we had perfect weather all week) and it was absolutely beautiful out at their property next to the little pond in their expansive backyard.

Nick and I weren't set on something fancy and catered, so I thought, "Why don't we have Syrian food?" Nick's family is Syrian, and I got the idea from his cousin's wedding a few years back. The whole family got together for their rehearsal dinner and made all of the delicious authentic food, and it was fantastic. I had also been craving a good Syrian meal for quite some time, so I thought that our rehearsal dinner was a perfect excuse :)

Nick's mom, Cherie, and her husband, Bryan, cooked everything from scratch. We had stuffed grape leaves, lubain (essentially, Tzatziki), simbousik (stuffed meat pies), riz and yuchnee (I have no idea how to spell it but it's delicious), Syrian bread, spinach-pie filling for the bread, and of course, baklava. They even made homemade drinks like cinnamon almond milk and a traditional rose-water drink. It was AMAZING.

It was the perfect evening with our friends and family, and to end the evening with a bang, the boys set off the fireworks Nick had bought back when we were in Idaho :) Nick and I also finally felt like we could relax and enjoy everything. It was the night before the wedding and whatever happened the next day was going to happen and we were still going to end up married at the end of the day, and that's what matters!

Thanks again to Cherie and Bryan for the fantastic food, and the Haugens for letting us take over their place! :)

Rogue Brewery Hopyard

Thursday night of the wedding week festivities Nick and I decided to take everyone out to the Rogue Hopyard out in Independence, OR. We stopped by briefly after meeting with the florist back in June, but nothing was open. It's absolutely beautiful out there, and a lot of our friends are beer enthusiasts, so we thought it would be a perfect outing for everyone when they were in town!

The evening did not disappoint. The weather was absolutely perfect and everyone had a great time trying different Rogue beers, playing Jenga and horseshoes (they also have bags!), and wandering the grounds trying not to get attacked by the scary giant turkey. Seriously, it was frightening. It kept opening its feathers at us and making weird noises. I swear it was following me around, just waiting for its chance to take me down.....

I highly recommend a trip out there. They do salmon bakes once a month during the summer, and the last one is on September 15th! The tickets cost $25 per person, but you get a tour of the farm and fresh salmon baked on a fire right in front of you. They also have a pig roast on October 13th. I can imagine how beautiful it would be out there in the Fall :)

[AHHHH]

[The pigs on the farm: Voo and Doo]

[Skipping rocks]

Bachelorette!

My bachelorette was the Wednesday before the wedding. I figured Thursday was a little too close (I knew I would need at least a full day to recover), but I couldn't put it too far ahead because all of my girls are super spread out across the country. It made organizing things a little difficult, but thankfully it worked out. Half of my bridesmaids were already in Oregon, the other half arrived at different times during the day on Wednesday.

We had rooms at the Paramount Hotel in downtown Portland. It's on Taylor and an absolute perfect location if you want to be able to go out on the town! Pretty much everything is within walking distance. 

The plan for the evening was happy hour at Bartini, then dinner next door at Urban Fondue. I've expressed my love for Bartini on my blog before, so I don't need to go into too much detail, but it was fabulous as always. I have been a handful of times now, and I still had new ones to try! My new favorite is the melon martini. De-lish. It was fun for me because I love it, but also fun to see my girls enjoy it so much! They should know I would never lead them astray :)

After martinis we went over to Urban Fondue and became sufficiently stuffed to the brim. The other plan for the night was to go to Darcelle's and see the drag show, but even though we moved our dinner reservation up 30 minutes, we still didn't get done in time for it to start at 8 :( I was a little bummed, but I still plan on making a point to go now that I am back in Oregon for awhile!

Even though we didn't go to the show, the evening was great and I had a lot of fun. We walked across the street to the Blue Moon McMenamin's and ended up sitting there for awhile and drinking and laughing and talking. I'm not a huge party girl, so for me it was perfect. After that we moved back downtown and ended up at a gay bar. We tried going more places after that but it was already 1:30 and unfortunately places close around then on a Wednesday night, haha. During our wandering we stumbled (literally) upon Voodoo Donuts... without a line. If you have ever been to Voodoo Donuts or tried to go to Voodoo Donuts, you will understand the magnitude of this statement. There is always a line, especially late at night. In my lovely state I of course decided that we must stop for a donut since there wasn't a line! Thankfully, Jordan got one with me so I wasn't the only fatty ;) No, they aren't much (it's hard to mess up a donut), but since they've been shown on the Travel Channel you can imagine the hype. Honestly, that donut saved my life. I would have been muuuuch worse off the next day ;)

All in all, it was a fabulous time with my lovely bridesmaids. I was so so so happy to finally have them all in one place! I wish we could do it all over again!

[Sisters]

[Michelle, Sarah, Me]

[Michelle, Me, Taryn] 

[I scored this dress at Forever 21 the day before... for $9.80. Woot!]

[Obligatory bathroom pics. Duh]

[Me and Chelsea]

[Blurry photo shoot with Jordy... only 2 of about a million]

[Is it obvious this was towards the end of the night?]

[Donut me!]

[Jordan's maple bacon donut and the one I chose. I asked the cashier her favorites and she got about halfway through her list before I interrupted her with, "Oh! That one's pretty!" Basically how I make most decisions]

Cheers to the best week of my life.

Since I last posted (y'know, before I just RE-posted that other one.. ugh), I went to a wedding of a friend in Central Oregon on the 27th and launched right back into the work world the next day. I have pretty much been working nonstop since then, with one day off on Friday and my next day off being this Friday. Throw in an hour commute each way and you have got yourself one tired lady. This is also on top of my fatigue from the whirlwind that was the entire month of July! I lost sleep when my Grandma was in the hospital, any day off from work was jam-packed with finalizing wedding details, and even when I was off for the 2 weeks around my wedding I had late nights and early mornings spending time with the many friends and family that were in town for mine and Nick's wedding. I promise I'm not complaining, because honestly it is the best kind of exhaustion. Nick and I could not be happier and are so grateful for the wonderful people in our lives that helped us celebrate our marriage. It was so surreal and wonderful and I wish we could do it all over again! We've been married a little over 2 weeks (woohoo! haha) and not a day goes by when I don't think about the details of that day or look at the pictures my now mother-in-law - our photographer for the wedding- posted on Facebook. I could write forever and ever in one blog post about the wedding week and feel like I hadn't said enough, but I will spare you that. Instead, I thought I would just write a few individual posts centered around some of the events of the week and things we did - details for you and kind of a reflection for me! I look forward to sharing with you!

[Both photos taken by my lovely friend and bridesmaid, Chelsea]

Oregon Brewer's Festival

I originally wrote this post literally the Friday of Brew Fest weekend. I published it... or so I thought. Whoops. Just now seeing this.... Oh well! It was still fun, and still worth posting abou!

This year's festival marked the 26th annual Oregon Brewer's Festival. I hadn't always been home at the right time, and I realized that last year we were home for it, but there was no time at all to make it. For future reference, it always lands on the last full weekend in July and runs about 4 days.

My first experience was great, and I highly recommend it for beer enthusiasts or if you have someone visiting Oregon. It's set down by the Riverfront of Portland, giving you beautiful views of your surroundings. It was a little hot (in the low 90s), but there are numerous tents, trees that block the sun gradually more and more, and a mister you can stand under to cool off. Not to mention all of the cold beer you can drink and water stations for drinking and cleaning out your glass. If you're needing some sustenance during your drinking fun, there are a good amount of food booths selling perfect drunk munchies food, like pizza, gyros, or German pretzels and sausage. Admission is free but if you want to taste you have to pay $7 for a souvenir glass to get your tastings in. In order to taste, you buy $1 wooden tokens - a tasting costs 1 token, a glass costs 4. I only had one glass the whole time because I had so much fun tasting different kinds, but it's a pretty good deal! Not to mention it's fun feeling like you're at an adult Chuck E. Cheese when you pay with your tokens. Nick and I started out together with 20 tokens and that was enough for me, but Nick went and bought 10 more. There were countless kinds of beers from different breweries around the country, and to make it easier there was a booklet you could carry with the descriptions so you aren't surprised by the taste. It also helps narrow it down so you don't end up trying to taste every single one. I wouldn't advise that ;)

This year there were a lot of fruity ones which I enjoyed tasting because they were lighter and tasted great in the hot weather. I'm not a huge beer drinker but I enjoy good beer, and I tried a lot of them. My least favorite was the marionberry beer. I know, disappointing. It was on the sour side and did not taste very good. Yuck. I also tried Boulder Beer Co's "Pump up the Jam", a blueberry wheat that was tasty, Laht Neppur Brewing Co.'s peach Hefeweizen, and my favorite fruity beer - 21st Amendment Brewery's "Hell or High Watermelon." A-maz-ing. That was the full glass of beer I had. Seriously delicious, refreshing, and not too sweet. Other beers I tasted and liked were Dogfish Head Craft Brewery's "Namaste" with orange, lemongrass, and coriander; Ninkasi's "Bohemian Pils"; Rogue Brewery's "Beard Beer" made with a natural yeast from the brewer's beard (I know, gross, but the beer was delicious); and a pecan brown ale. Honestly, I could probably find something I liked about each beer with the exception of a few that just didn't taste good, but there weren't many like that. Plus, the fun is in trying, and if you don't like it, your tasting pour is only about 4 oz so you don't have to endure it long! It was a super fun day and I will definitely go again!

[Ready to drink!]

[Perfect drinking snack - carbs and cheese from the Gustav's booth]

[Among the day's music - a bluegrass band]