Can I get a vacation to recover from my vacation?

I know everyone has felt this way, especially when a vacation involves family. David and I headed up to Ohio to visit my family over the fourth. We had great laughs, plenty of time to play with my nephews, fireworks, and a jet ski and boat to play on, and down time where I was finally able to pick up a book I wanted to read. I love my family, and I was great to see all of them and I really did have a great time, they are not the exhausting ones. Traveling was exhausting. Running through Denver's airport and getting in last night at 1:30 am (which felt like 4:30 am since we had adjusted to eastern time) just sucked. But perhaps the reason I feel like I want another vacation is because I'm trying to put off the inevitable. Early Friday morning, I get to head back to the airport to head to San Diego to attend the Esri User Conference, and when I get back I have to head down to California again for my 9 week internship with Esri. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for both, but I am feeling underprepared and wondering when I will have the time to get packed! Well, I guess it's "make it work" time, wish me luck! I hope that everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Headed out!

So, now that summer is here, I have been working on my RA work like a crazy mad woman. I am attempting to make an interactive mapping website, something I have never done before, and I feel stumped! Needless to say, I feel like I have been banging my head against the wall to even find a starting point. But at last I am making progress, slow progress, but progress. I have also been spending a lot of my free time with all my graduate friends who are still around, between barbecues and a few road trips to surrounding wineries or five guys burgers (hey, when you have a craving you have a craving)...

Here's the beautiful view from Redhawk Winery, you can even seen the snow capped peak of Mt. Hood on the left side! P.S. all you OR haters who say it rains all the time... check out the beautiful blue skies that lasted all day!

Tomorrow, David and I head out to visit my family and celebrate the Fourth of July! I hope that everyone is enjoying the nice weather and will get to relax and enjoy their long holiday weekend! Happy early Independence Day!

Anniversary Adventure

So, on June 11th David and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Deciding that we hadn't had much time to explore the state of Oregon together, we set out on a mini adventure. We headed to Portland for the night, and just happened to be there during the Rose Festival. We got to see the parade of flower floats and than strolled past the carnival rides, carnival food, free music down the waterfront on a beautiful sunny day in Portland.

 
The next day, after wandering the streets of Portland to find a particular breakfast food cart, we headed towards the Columbia River Gorge and it's many waterfalls (to kind of remind us of our honeymoon in Kauai with lots of waterfalls as well). I have already been to the area for the field trip at the beginning of the school year last September, but this was David's first trip. The sun was shinning and due to the 'warmer' weather the waterfalls looked spectacular! We followed the historic scenic highway, stopped at a few waterfalls and the View House at Vista Point to look at the view over the Columbia River. Our final stop was Multnomah Falls, which was packed with people enjoying the nice day.

After the strenuous hike to the top, we returned back down, chugged our water (which we left in the car) and left. We got lucky, because as soon as we were done, it began to rain, pretty much all the way home. We stopped and had lunch at Tad's Chicken and Dumplings, filled up on the delicious food (which I forgot to take picture of because I was so hungry after our hike, that I ate my food before I even though to take a picture). We drove home, thoroughly tuckered out, and relaxed for the rest of the night. It was great to get to share that with David, and make another memory for our anniversary.

End of Term Blues

OK, so I was living in Texas for majority of the last 10 year of my life before we moved here to Oregon. Everyone promised that it would be rainy, but by Memorial Day the rain would dry, the temperatures would rise and the sun would come out. I must admit I don't miss the Texas heat and humidity, but I do miss the sunshine. And for the most part Memorial Day wasn't an entire washout and the sun did appear periodically throughout the day. But now I am in my last week of classes and have two finals on Monday. The 'bummer' is that this weekend is supposed to be the nicest that we've had, well, since September. Sunny days with blue skies and highs over 80 degrees! And instead of being able to relish in the sunshine like I really want to, I have to be inside studying for my finals and writing my last ecological policy critique on marine protected areas. Can anyone come up with an excuse to be outside Saturday instead of inside? Please? Anyone...

OK... starting to see a trend

OK, so this trend isn't a good one, basically it is during school I suck at creating clever and timely blog posts. So I am planning on working on this, of course it's great that I only have a few weeks left and than it will be summertime baby! So, I figured I could give everyone a heads up of what I've been doing and a future look into my summer plans:

Currently, I am elbow deep in complete lab assignments for my advanced GIS class and my digital cartography class (aka how to make really pretty maps, like the one below)

In this map I learned how to create a whitewash effect and create a color elevation bar (kinda cool rather that just using the layer symbology). For my advanced GIS class I am creating different spatial surface interpolation maps about max ozone levels in southern California (the neatness and professionalism of this map doesn't count for points hence it isn't my finest example...)

As for the summer I shall (for now) being staying on Corvallis, except for a week to visit my parent's and rest of my family in Ohio for the 4th of July (yeah fireworks!) and the following week I will be attending the ESRI International User Conference as one of their student helpers (cool...it like my version of Google choosing me for the opportunity). Otherwise we will just have to wait and see!

Spring Break Visit from my parents

Sorry folks for such the late post. My parents came up to visit during our spring break at the end of March between Winter and Spring term. I was wonderful to see them! Can you believe that this was the first time my parent's had to travel to see just David and I? (This translates directly into time spent cleaning...).

We spent time up in Portland for their one truly sunny day...

We traveled to the coast...

        

A winery...         

And a non-profit carousel builder...? (WHAT??)

As far as I can tell everyone had a great time, David and I definitely appreciate their visit and hope they will come back next year... although maybe a little bit more in Spring so they can see all the flowers in bloom!

Return from Hibernation

Hello again everyone!

I'm back from my winter term hibernation (I blame it on the cold, wet weather as well as the heavy course load). Spring term has started and currently it's sunny and the flowers and the trees are all in bloom. Unfortuanltly, I'm stuck in my classroom for my Ocean Law class right now. Don't get me wrong, I am actually enjoying learning the in's and out's surrounding the ocean legal system and framework, but I would much rather be outside in the field. But since I am in class (don't worry we are in a break right now) this will be a very short blog posting, but I just wanted to let everyone out in cyberspace know I am alive and I haven't forgotten about my blog.

Keep your eyes open for upcomng blogs, I still need to post my parents spring break visit as well as some upcoming professional events. I will also be talking about classes and thus far classes are going well and things are shaping up to be a busy term (surprised? I'm not...). And I will hopefully by the end of this term be able to properly articulate my masters thesis work, so keep posted, I know everyone is dying to know what I will be studying, and so am I!