One Month Report (part the first)

So we’ve been in Oregon for a month—can you believe it?  Here’s a quick (ha, am I ever quick?) rundown on our first month in Oregon. 

I started things off with a bang by disassembling the dryer (ok, just the door) which really surprised Russ.  But I figured in such a small area, there was no reason that the door should not open on the right side.  Unfortunately I wasn’t strong enough to get the screws in, fortunately Russ was able to reattach it for me.

Sometime during our first week there was a pounding rainstorm complete with thunder.  Apparently that is uncommon here because people talked about it everywhere we went for days.  It was cool to see a double rainbow right outside our door.

We discovered, much to our surprise, that North Carolina doesn’t have a monopoly on dogwood.  But that the dogwood that lives here is pointy.

Russ and I went on a date to the Rhododendron Garden in Portland.  It was nice to have some time alone together, and he was very patient with all of my picture taking.  Rhododendrons in Oregon seem to be what azaleas are in North Carolina—they are everywhere and there seem to be infinite varieties.  There are some that are bushes like in NC, but there are also rhododendron trees.

Our next Oregon adventure was a quick girl’s trip up to Seattle to spend some time with our friends the Wrights who used to be in our Durham ward.  Their oldest daughter’s ballroom dance team was having a dance concert and it sounded like just the thing to entertain us while Russ & Jared were on an 11 year old scout campout. 

The dance concert was a smashing success and both girls are now determined to become ballroom dancers.  The next day Jen & I took the kids to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma.  We got to watch glassblowers at work, try to design our own glass sculpture,

wear Lily’s rapunzel hair,

see all sorts of interesting glass art,

much of which (like the display of life sized chalices) we didn’t understand.

The best part of the glass museum was the bridge connecting it to a nearby area of shops.  The sides of the bridge contained blown glass objects,

and the ceiling as well!

We had a great time on our Seattle trip.

The next week’s adventure was the delivery of all of our stuff from storage into our two garages here at the apartment complex. 

One of the movers thought we were moving crude oil, but seemed satisfied when I told him it was wheat.

We were very happy to get more parts of our couch to sit on (and let’s be real, to put our feet on!) and to get a dresser for our clothes.

We got the exciting news from North Carolina that Josh had passed his Eagle board of review—YAY!

 

to be continued…