A College Student With Nothing To Do

This weekend is the only weekend when Marcel doesn't have an event on-campus. And when there is an event, he HAS to go because he puts it on, being pretty much the lone sound guy at Pacific (he even has an event to do on MY birthday). So we took advantage of a free Friday night and went to McMenamins, got a tasty drink--I recommend everyone try an Electric Watermelon if you drink alcoholic drinks!--watched a movie (Wanted) and soaked in their Soaking Pool (a really big hot tub). I didn't like the movie, but I figured I wouldn't--it was Marcel's selection, but it was still good to be together. The hot tub is always nice so there's no room for complaining there!

It's nice to spend time together but as I sit here in his dorm with his roommates and all their friends, I am reminded that I am no longer a college student. Living off-campus is weird (it's the first time since I've lived in Forest Grove that I have) but even more weird is being on-campus and not being a student. Good thing Marcel only has 1 year left to be on-campus!



A picture of us headed home after a great soak!

Labor Day 2008

Marcel and I took advantage of the long weekend and headed back up to Olympia. I left work early Friday to try to beat the Portland traffic, which we did! I don't think 3 days is enough to warrant a trip, even going only to Washington but Marcel's dad got married, so we had the perfect excuse for the traveling. The ceremony was beautiful and marked the 4th one I attended this summer (#3 with Marcel)--let's just say I'm learning lots about weddings :) It was also Harbor Day (or weekend, I'm not exactly sure) in Olympia and Snoh (Marcel's little brother) was very excited to go and see the pirate boats. We were even able to tour one of the boats from "Pirates of the Caribbean". It's fun to do activities with little kids; they make it so much fun! Now it's back to my last week of work in my summer job and I have yet to find something else. I'm working on it and have applications turned in like crazy but nothings happened yet. Only time will tell I guess :)

These are just a few of the best pictures. I have 250+ from the weekend because that's what happens when I let Marcel be the photographer :)

Me and Marcel at his dad's wedding.








Enjoying a Labor Day date at Priest Point park. What a beautiful place Olympia is!






Still at the park; isn't he so handsome? I had to include a picture of just Marcel :)








Little brother, big brother with "Say Cheese" Faces








Me and my other family with some pirates on the pirate ship! Snoh was a little distracted with the little boy it looks like. He had a great time.





Snoh with all the pirate accessories







Marcel set Snoh on the trunk to open the door and without missing a beat he decided the roof of my car looked more fun.

Weekend in Idaho

This last weekend, me and Marcel were able to spend some time in Idaho. We left early Friday morning (up at 3:30am to drive an hour to the airport and then catch our flight) and had to leave early afternoon on Monday. We were able to go to Roaring Springs, take Marcel to his first ever rodeo, enjoy some shopping, attend Jenny's wedding, and even spend some time simply hanging out. It was very short but still very worth our time to go and lots of fun. It's always nice to get to go home, even though it doesn't happen often enough.
Here are some of my favorite pictures of the weekend...Enjoy!

Me and Marcel at his first ever rodeo!

Mom, sisters, and 2 boyfriends

Enjoying a nice wedding and slow dancing only :)

Me and the beautiful bride, Jenny Brown

Our first return-trip flight together...This trip was the only one we've taken that included airplanes and we forgot a picture on the way to Idaho; I blame it on the fact that our flight was at 6:30am.

And the SYTYCD Winner is...

JOSHUA!

I let Marcel have Joshua as his pick for our competition but I still chose him so I'm on a 2-0 winning streak for picking the dancer who ultimately wins the show! This season has been great and I'm glad that of any of the seasons I've seen that it is this season I'll be seeing on tour with my absolutely amazing boyfriend! What a great date it will be so close to my birthday... Because this show has pretty much been my life the last few months, I think I should post one more video of Josh's dancing (plus now that I've figured out how to do it, it's pretty easy!)

Joshua & Katee (Hip-hop)--a loved one being sent to war

Dance Favorites #2

More favorites :)

Katee & Joshua (Lyrical Jazz)--Love takes a lot of work but it is always worth all the work.

Twitch & Kherington (Viennese Waltz)--for the choreographer's special needs daughter.
The girl I chose in my bet with Marcel!

Courtney & Will (Slow Hip-Hop)--enduring the loss of a loved one and wishing for just one last moment together.
The guy I chose in my bet with Marcel!

Dance Favorites

In honor of the finale of "So You Think You Can Dance" tonight, I thought I'd share the clips from some of my favorites! Enjoy...

Chelsie & Mark (Hip Hop)--a workaholic husband


Twitch & Katee (Contemporary)--a crazy ex-girlfriend

You Gotta Lose Every Once in a While, Right?

It seems like me and Marcel always have a bet of some sort going on. Most of the time it is on normal stuff, March Madness and the Super Bowl, and we've adapted things to our own way of determining a winner, but in addition we also place bets on "So You Think You Can Dance?". For this show, after the Top 20 is announced, we each pick our favorite girl and favorite guy dancer and whoever has the last dancer standing wins (regardless of that dancer actually winning the competition). I decided just a few weeks ago that I owe our relationship to this show. For those of you who may not know, me and Marcel started dating after just a few weeks of REALLY knowing each other and for only a week before we were forced into a long-distance relationship; school was out and he returned home to Washington. We had yet to realize all the things we have in common (trust me, it took some time for that to happen between 2 pretty different people) but we did know that we both loved the show SYTYCD. It seems that no matter how often we talked, we only talked about what happened on the show, what was going to happen, who we liked, who we didn't, etc, so it helped form the foundation of our relationship from the very beginning. Before this season of SYTYCD, I was 5-0 (2 dance seasons, 2 basketball tournaments, and the latest Super Bowl) in our bets, but as of last night both of my dancers, Will and Kherrington, have been eliminated and Marcel has one (Josh) left, making him the winner. Its funny, though, because I originally picked his remaining dancer and after him complaining I picked someone else, so I should have won again, but life will go on and its something pretty easy for me to sacrifice for the benefit of our amazing relationship. So for losing, I'm buying 2 tickets to their tour stop in Portland, OR. Normally the prize is just a date of any kind that you decide, but we decided the tour tickets were fitting, since it was what we bet on, so we will be attending their Sept. 21 show at the Rose Garden, my treat!The dancers we'll be seeing

Enjoying My Backyard

Yesterday, I came home from an extremely normal but boring day at work, with a bad headache. I came home and noticed that no one had checked the mail so out I went on a walk to recover whatever we may have gotten. When I returned to the house, I found that I had locked myself out of the house with nothing but the mailbox key and yet another store catalog for the previous tenant. I was then standing on our garbage bin to open our fence so I could sit in one of our lawn chairs in the back yard. After 5-10 minutes I could hear that I hadn't gotten the fence closed completely and when I went to fix it I noticed a roommate had made it home. Well, I spent another 5 minutes on the front step, because she had locked herself IN (much better than out!) and had gotten in the shower. Let's just say it wasn't the greatest evening ever, until me and Kelly had a TV watching marathon and I finished a season of Gilmore Girls. And I'll just let you know that it is the most time I've spent in our yard :) The joys of a real house and no longer living in a dorm! I'm finding it much more humorous today than yesterday so I hope you can all enjoy a laugh or two at my expense...

4th of July in Olympia

With an extra long weekend I headed up to Olympia to see Marcel. It had been a long time since I'd been up to see him and his family so this visit was long overdue. I'm not a particularly big fan of the 4th of July but it was a great excuse to make the trip! My trip included a long walk around Capitol Lake in Olympia that ended with us at the Capitol Building in a downpour, which was surprisingly beautiful. The weather was still warm so it was nice to get a little wet :) Throughout our walk we were amazed by God's beautiful creation and that we didn't have to travel anywhere exotic to see such beauty. We also headed up north to the local water park, Wild Waves. We weren't there long but we got there when it opened so we did each ride a few times before enjoying a great lunch date at Applebee's. I also enjoyed 2 church services at the church Marcel is completing a summer internship at. I've been there before but whenever I get the chance to see Marcel involved in worship, I realize how lucky I am to have found such a servant of God to love and to be loved by!

Out on a dock we found while on our beautiful walk. Obviously this was before the downpour when the weather was nice and sunny!

Another picture from our walk. I made us stop here to have a pretty background.

After a day at Wild Waves, looking just gorgeous! We didn't care because we had a blast and were finally together again ;)

Marcel insisted on making the ducks fly away

A beautiful group of lily pads out on a beautiful lake

The view of the Capitol Building at the beginning of our walk

Relay for Life

Last night me and my roommate once again participated in Hillsboro, Oregon's Relay for Life with our church. We decided that we were pretty much the youngest participants so we signed up for 11:30pm-2am (luckily with a little break in between). We were very excited to be walking for such a great cause! However, once we started walking we realized that we were still the youngest people there (mostly) but we were dragging our feet the most, figuratively. We hustled our butt around the track and we walked almost 8 miles, but there were people 3x our age and over who were still full of energy when we were finally done and getting ready to head home. We're both a summer away from being 23 and this event made us feel not as young as people keep reminding us we are :)

Even though the event is over, it is not too late to support me in my walking for cancer. You can follow the link below to find "my" page from Relay for Life to donate. Remember, everything goes to a great cause and your help "supports the American Cancer Society in its lifesaving mission to eliminate cancer as a major health issue" (taken from RFL website).
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TRC/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeGreatWestDivision?pg=peditor&fr_id=5757&px=3728696

Finally, it seems like Summer

Forest Grove has finally had a few days of nice weather and we're all hoping it will last for awhile. I was able to enjoy the weather on an amazing picnic with Marcel at the city park with the best swings, my only reason for going to parks in the first place!

Me and Marcel enjoying each other's company after a great lunch of sandwiches and chips.








We're still kids at heart enjoying swings :)











Now that it's nice, poor college students/graduates will do just about anything for some extra cash! By the way, this is not me :)

Let the Season Begin

Saturday I attended the first wedding ceremony of my summer, which was also the first one I had been to in ages. While I didn't know the bride or groom all that well, (I was Marcel's guest) the ceremony was touching. It was beautiful to see two people so in love and to be able to start a new chapter of their lives together like God has planned for them. I'm excited to be able to witness this come true for 2 more couples before the summer comes to a close.