This past weekend, Eric and I went to Pullman (our old stomping grounds) to WSU to watch Eric’s brother Jamie graduate. It was really fun, including the dinner we made for Jamie, their brother Danny and a few of Jamie’s friends on the night before graduation.
Eric made one of his classic recipes - it’s pasta shells with pancetta, asparagus, green beans, shallots, creme fraiche and butter. It’s creamy, fatty goodness and it pretty much melts in your mouth. Yum.
I worked on my forearm muscles by whipping up some fresh cream to adorn our strawberries with for dessert. It was a great meal for the night before graduation. Thanks to Danny for taking all the photos in this post!
I won the life lottery. Why? Because my husband is wonderful, and because he loves to cook. He’s been busting out his culinary moves lately and he’s made me some scrumptious meals.
The other night when the culinary bug struck, Eric whipped up a salad made with fresh kale and grapefruit sections which was mouth-watering, and just as good the next day. But the real event was the main course: pasta shells with grilled mushrooms, bacon, green onions and crème fraîche. Oh my goodness. It was pure heaven.
Then he made chocolate mousse from scratch for dessert, which I sadly don’t have any pictures of. I love having a cook husband!
We do love living in Portland. A few weeks ago, we went out apartment-hunting on round one. We’re not quite ready to take the leap, but we will be soon and it’ll give us lots to share on the blog as we learn to live on our own yet again.
Of course, one of the great draws of living in Portlan is the great restaurants. There are seriously so many great places to eat in this town. A great spot we discovered recently is Ten01, which is in the Pearl District. It was voted the best restaurant in Portland last year, but we were feeling a little poor when we went, so we hit up happy hour and I am not exaggerating when I say that the burger above ($5) was one of the best I’ve ever had. Not to mention I’m dieting, so the smaller size of this burger was completely perfect.
Speaking of dieting, I’m going on a little quest to lose 15 pounds by the 4th of July - it’s weight I’ve needed to get off for awhile, and since I’ve got a busy wedding season this summer, I want to be a lighter version of myself so I can keep up with all my hard work. The above shirt is a shirt I totally fell in love with at J. Crew last week, and my mom told me that she’d buy it for me if I hit my goal by the date set - so far, so good - I’m about ten days in and I’ve lost 6.5 pounds already! I’m way ahead of schedule. So stay tuned for pictures of me photographing a wedding in my shiny new champagne-colored blouse this summer!
I’ll leave you with this non-dieting image (although if you run enough, gelato can be a reality of everyday life!) We stopped by Mio Gelato in the Pearl last week also, after our fantastic happy hour burgers. I totally recommend the cinnamon, pictured here. Happy sunny weekend, and I’ll blog again soon!
When I graduated from college, I was afraid of the great wide open ahead of me. The world was my oyster, as some would say, and picking a path was the overwhelming thing to do. Now, a few years later, the opposite is true. At some point, I had to pick a path, and the great wide open isn’t so open anymore. Funny how you always want what you can’t have.
We’ve been missing Buenos Aires. Today Eric was flipping through our blog archives, and looking at all the photos from our months there was bittersweet. I totally love what I’m doing now, but seeing my calendar fill up with photo jobs also means no long three-month expanses to go take up temporary residence in New Zealand, Peru or Taiwan.
Today, I was admitted to New York University’s M.S. in Publishing program. But so much in my life has changed since I sent off my applications in December that I decided awhile ago that graduate school isn’t for me right now. However, the conceptual idea of that was one thing, and having an acceptance letter to a prestigious school in my hand and knowing I’m going to turn it down is quite another.
I’ve picked a good path for now, which I’m happy about. I’m living in Portland, I’m photographing great people, I love my job and running my own business. And certainly we’ll still be able to travel, although not as much as we did last year. Maybe it’s natural to grieve the things that change in our lives, even if we’re thrilled with the new opportunities?
P.S. On a happier note, congratulations to our friends Chris and Amanda, who found out recently they’re going to have a baby! We love you guys!
Hi all:
Boy, we’re getting bad at blogging on here, aren’t we? Well, I wanted to assure you that we’re not giving up on the ol’ blog. Here’s a bit of an update on our developing lives in Portland.
Eric is keeping busy with consulting work, which is great because it’s flexible and he doesn’t have to do all the parts of full-time work that he disliked, like doing performance reviews and all that paperwork sort of stuff. I’m also growing my photography business and the response so far has been great. I’m looking forward to a busy wedding season this year, a busy senior portrait season and lots of busy months ahead. If you know anyone getting married in Oregon or Washington who needs a photographer, send them my way - I haven’t quite filled out my schedule yet for this year.
We’re looking for our own little place to live, and we’ll probably be moving in the next month or two. Then we’ll have all sorts of things to blog about, as we pick out some new furniture, get settled in and get to know a good neighborhood. It’s all happening, as Kate Hudson says in “Almost Famous,” and we’re working on keeping that forward momentum.
This summer, we’ll be traveling a lot (or at least I will) to and from the Seattle area (for weddings) and possibly also to Denmark to visit our dear friends Erika and Morten, who just bought a house in the outskirts of Copenhagen. We feel the need to help them break the house in.
So stick with us, and if you’re feeling the need to read more of my words, please check out my brand-new photography blog, which has a new post on it every weekday. Thanks patient readers!
And because no post should have to exist without a picture, here’s one I took over the weekend at Cannon Beach. Dan & Annie are good friends and they’re getting married in October.
