Birthday Pictures

Before the pictures, I forgot to mention in the last post that Marcel is very proud of me after lunch today. I'm a very picky eater and somehow something came up about having to eat something 3 times before deciding if you like it or not. So, he decided that was our new rule, 3 bites of everything for MaryBeth. Today I had 3 bites of clam chowder, which I said I didn't like before the 3 bites, and still don't like. Also we ordered a sampler plate of the brewery's 7 beers because we are both afraid of ordering a normal size drink and then not liking it, and I tried each one. There were a few of them that I could tolerate but none that I really liked and I won't be trying beer again in the near future. But I still passed the 3 taste (or drink!) test and got many props from my absolutely loving boyfriend who spoiled me rotten this weekend!

Okay, now for the pictures!

After the sunrise, I practically ran back to the car because my feet were freezing. Marcel stayed behind to get a picture of me in the sun. It turned out beautifully if you ask me...





The sand dune. I don't think any of the pictures we took of it does it any justice for how hard it was. Oh well, we know what a stuggle we overcame together.

At the top of the dune, proud of each other for motivating the other to finish!

My "yucky" face. I wasn't happy with much of the beer, but tried anyway. Also, should let you know that Marcel took nearly 50 pictures of me eating lunch (and I didn't realize it for most of them) so this is the one I'm choosing to include. If he ever wanted to post, he could show you all those other pictures, but I'm not going to do that to myself.

My goofy boyfriend, but I still consider myself very lucky to get to call him mine :)

Marcel Drew + MaryBeth = FAEA
Forever And Ever Always

23rd Birthday at Pacific City

To celebrate my 23rd birthday--September 26 (yes, I'm the older one in the relationship!), me and Marcel headed down to Pacific City, the first beach I ever visited once at school in Oregon. We left Forest Grove late Friday night and made it there around 10pm--after a quick check to make sure we weren't lost. 8 hours later, yes I was up at 6am, we got up and drove to the beach to sit out and watch the sunrise. We sat facing the water so didn't see the sunrise but were still amazed by the changing scenery and God's creation with each minute we sat there.

The real "reason" for the trip was to climb the sand dune. I did it 4 years ago on my first trip to the beach, and remembered it being hard, but this time it was difficult. It was very good motivation to get my butt moving again :)

We had a great walk along the beach and writing in the sand and Marcel was a fantastic photographer. He always goes over board with pictures, but this time he even out did himself: 735 pictures and a handful of video clips. I'll update the post in the near future with photos, but because I have so many to go through it will take some time and we are headed out for one more birthday event--a movie date! I didn't have this blog on Marcel's birthday, but when he was growing up he had a birthday month (April) until his little brother was born (in the same month!) so he was demoted to half month, but since I was raised on only a birthDAY we compromised on 5 birthDAYs, so since Monday I have been able to use "but it's my birthday" whenever I feel like it.

I had a great time at the beach and overall had an amazing 23rd birthday. I wasn't very excited to turn 23 but for the almost 2 days that I have been 23 it has been perfect!

A teaser for the many more pictures to come!
Me and Marcel sitting on the beach during the sunrise, bundled up (I had 3 jackets on!) and enjoying each other's company...

SYTYCD Tour Stop in Portland, Oregon

Last night, I was able to come clean on my latest bet with Marcel Drew: So You Think You Can Dance. As you all know (if not, see previous post "You Gotta Lose Every Once in Awhile"), I lost a bet with Marcel for the first time out of 6. Back in early August, I bought us tickets to their tour stop in Portland and the night finally came. We had never been before and didn't really know what to expect but it turned out to be just the best dances from the season, and very few new dances. We had great seats for me being poor and buying the cheapest tickets possible! We happened to be in the front row of the "bad" section so we were able to see everything perfectly(I did wear my glasses just to help that much more!).

Marcel again was the photographer so I had 130 pictures to go through but I think I found some of the best ones to show!






And during the very last dance I remembered to tell Marcel that my camera has a video camera on it so he got the end of one of the winner's dances, but then he recorded their new dance that was sort of like an encore. Don't mind the little bit of the video he took of me in the middle of the dance. Enjoy!

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