Jackie's (First) Visit and the 4th of July!

So last week, Jackie was here to visit with us. She was super bored at home and wanted to get away. We tried to get some shopping done for her dorm, but she has most of it done already. It was SO hot here last week so for the most part we just sat around and watched True Blood when I wasn't at work.

She was also here for 4th of July... her and I had a ton of fun with the fire works. We both had our Flip video cameras and this was the best movie of them all!

**Warning: Jackie has a dirty mouth, so it's her cussing not me :)**

She left 2 days ago, but will be back by Monday this next week for our Ragnar Relay race (Which is in 10 days... I think I might throw up from excitement!!)

Poor Blogging Skills

So I must say, up front, that lately I have had some poor blogging skills. I haven't posted anything since May (sad, really) even though there has been much more going on.

Harry Potter and I still have our daily meetings. I am currently on Happy Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (the 5th book). I blasted though books 3 and 4. Again, I have found that there are some many little details and even some characters that are completely left out of the movies. I mean, if they got every scene of the 4th book (which is 734 pages long) into a movie, it would probably take days to watch. But I'm just saying... it's amazing to me. JK Rowling is such a good writer...

My little sister Jackie graduated from high school on June 6th. It was fun to have the whole family together! Dave came with me. I wish we could have spent more time there, but hopefully Dad and Jackie will come up this summer and stay with us :)

My my fierce little honor student and her Tahoe

From left: Mommy, Grandma Camille, Jackie, Daddy, Aunt KayKay and meeeeeee!

Koehler women.

Jackie atop a delicious red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. It was gone by midnight.

Dave and I have also kept busy the last 2 weekends with graduation parties here. Oregon State's graduation was the 13th, so Emma had her party at her parent's house in Beaverton on Sunday. This last Saturday my family friends, the Page's, had a party for Meghan for graduating from OSU, and Michael for graduating from high school. It was really fun, and we got to see their whole family too.

July is already filling up with plans for adventures and activities. There's 4th of July. We have Alissa's graduation party on the 10th. And our Ragnar Relay race on the 23rd and 24th. SO excited! Hopefully I will have the time to get all the pictures and funny stories up on here for all to see!

Me vs. Harry Potter

As you may know, since becoming a college grad, there is a bit more free time on my plate than I have ever had. My mom always put it well, "You need to stay busy to get things done." It's true. I need a list of things to do, otherwise nothing gets done. I have found that I have a lot of hobbies, including art and crafts. I have put together a lot of social events for friends and family, and put collages of pictures from those events together (don't believe me? Come by the house...)

So as of late, the books I have been TRYING to read have been flops (at least for me). I tried reading The Lovely Bones, but being a recent college grad in "The Great Recession" and lots of clouds and no sun will make a girl depressed, so I had to stop because it was making me more sad. So, with the movie coming out, I picked up Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Let me just say, being familiar the movie helped LOTS, because that book was a difficult read. It was like reading a college text book. NOT pleasure reading. At this point I gave up on trying to find a good book to read, because it is very rare that I can't make it through a good fiction book. But then, an idea hit me: While reading about the up coming TWO movies to cover the seventh book of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, I got the idea to tackle the entire series again before the new movies come out. My plan is to re-read each book and watch the movies in between books.

So far, so good! I have already completed the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I BLEW through it. Yes, it's an easy read, but there are many details and descriptions in the book that didn't make it into the movie that I had since forgotten. It has been many, many years since I had read it, so it was really fun to read. I have also already Netflix'd and watched the movie. Now on to the next!

I am already about half way though, but during my recent trip home to California, I fell asleep with the book in bed and I think it fell behind the bed. I packed up and left without Harry! Ugh. I'll probably just go to the library and check it out until I go back to my Dad's for Jackie's graduation. So far though, there are way more details in this book that I had forgotten about than the first. I must have breezed though it too fast all those many years ago :)

I'll keep you detailed on my project here... all is otherwise good. I have this feeling that some big changes are on the way though. :) (If it's not, I'm gonna make it happen!!!)

Walk for Water 2010

On March 21st, a few of my co-workers and myself drove up to Portland for World Water Day and for Portland Roasting's event, Walk for Water. We had two teams of ten, with all three locations of Coffee Culture represented. It was really fun! Here is the video of footage from the event that Portland Roasting put together.... gives you something to think about... :)

The Get-away!

For our celebration of dating for 2 years, Dave totally spoiled me and took me on a short get away to one of my favorite places, McMenamins Edgefield. We booked Monday night there and stayed, then took all day Tuesday to do whatever we wanted to do. Monday we got there and had dinner at the Power Station Pub, then took a dip in the salt water soaking pool, had dessert and crashed. Our room was awesome! McMenamins is known for its funky art and rustic vibe...


The sun rising over our bed.



The lilly pond in our bath room

On Tuesday we woke up, took baths, ate an incredible breakfast, and went out to Multnomah Falls to hike. We hiked to the top of the falls. We were so lucky that it was such a nice day! :)





Dave made the joke while we were floating around the soaking pool that the next vacation we have like this might be our honeymoon. Let's hope we can squeeze another one in before then... :)

Portland Roasting and beyond...

As mentioned earlier, a few of my fellow baristas (and one baristo haha) went up to Portland Roasting Company to take a tour and brush up on our skills. We started the afternoon off with a delicious lunch at a bar and grill place that was delish! (I must find the name....). Then off to PDX roasting we went. We toured their warehouse with all the Monin syrups, Mighty Leaf teas, Dr. Smoothie containers, and, of course, bags and bags of green coffee beans waiting for their turn to be roasted. We learned how the Swiss Water decaffination process works, and where the beans come from (many people who are employed or involved at Portland Roasting have been to the farms, met the farmers and even purchased land in far off countries so that it may be used for growing coffee). We then proceeded to the roasting room and saw their whole process from roasting to bagging.



This is one of two of their roasters. This is the smaller of the two, and roasts 150 pounds of coffee at a time. It is the newer of the two, and was designed to be fully automated, but they found it was much better to just have a person operate it. To give you some perspective on the size of it, the round drum just in front of the roaster itself comes up to my waist.

Then, shortly after a potty break, we moved into the cupping room and began talking technique. Steve, our tour guide and all around coffee bad ass, made us "drip" coffee with a device called a Chemex. BEST CUP OF COFFEE I HAVE EVER HAD. I intend to have one in my house someday... but the Chemex deserves its' own blog post.



We then dove right into latte art. My fave. Steve gave us some great pointers and helped us to brush up on our skills. I feel that I have become a lot more consistent at it at work... but have yet to take any photos. Here are a few that I have taken since leaning the great art of the latte:







It was so fun, and got me all excited about my job ,and how to improve myself. I learned a lot! I'll get a post up about Chemex... but first I gotta do my research... ;)

P.S. The picture at the top of this post is of Portland Roasting's Bike delivery unit. Since the company itself is right SE of downtown, they prefer to have all of their downtown Portland deliveries be made by bike. No exceptions. (They take pride in being a very sustainable company... :) ) Even better was yesterday, when moving Sarah into her dorms at Linfield campus in NW Portland for nursing school (which starts on Monday) we saw mister bike delivery guy hauling ass past us. I think that is SO awesome!

Slower Paced

So, since the new year, I haven't really posted anything. To be honest, there hasn't been much to post about. It seems that I am trying to keep up with everyone else rather than the other way around. My little sister is (not so) patiently waiting for responses from colleges that may or may not offer her brand new paths and adventures. In the mean time, she will be turning 18 in a matter of weeks (which makes me feel really old...), and I am still trying to come up with the best birthday present ever. I miss her like crazy though. In fact, I miss HOME like crazy for some reason. Thoughts of being on the back deck at dad's house with Jackie, Dad, the dogs and a California sunset pull on my heart strings. Hopefully once spring hits, I can plan a trip down.

Annie, Dave's littlest sister is in London, and blogs pretty frequently, so we are always checking for new blogs (and there's a new one today! I need to catch up!). Abby, Dave's other sister is married and blissful... giving us fake scares on facebook with vauge status updates hinting at offspring (turns out they got turtles, not twin human babies).

Sarah got into nursing school at Linfield and is moving up to Portland on the 5th, which Alissa and I are going to help her do. Alissa will be graduating from OSU at the end of the term, which means we will probably be seeing a lot less of her, since she lives down on her parents' farm outside of Eugene. Emma is here right now, but has taken a job at Intel and will return to Beaverton in June. SOOO... all my girls will be moving away some time or another in the next few months... sad.

I have been lazily looking for jobs here and there, but it seems every time I start looking, I see the same thing. Dave has been looking for jobs much more aggressively than I, and is actually preparing to do a batch of applications this weekend. Our 2 year anniversary is coming up on the 5th. As a present, Dave booked us a night at one of our favorite spots, McMenamins Edgefield, for a romantic night alone :) I CANNOT wait!

So, while waiting for better luck in jobs, I have been embracing my current one. I work hard to make sure that I am improving every day. Tomorrow, a group of us will be traveling to Portland to visit our roaster, Portland Roasting Company, and will be touring their facilities and having some latte art lessons. I have also begun planning for this years' Ragnar Relay and I hope to be a team captain. So far so good, but the closer it gets, the more I will have to accomplish, so I'm trying to get a jump start on all my planning, so that I won't be a stress case later.

Anyway, hopefully I will have lots of pictures and stories from my adventure tomorrow, so I will be posting about it for sure. Hope all is well with the rest of the world... until then... :)