Road Trip 2014: Day 8

Our first day in Portland was, as cliche as it sounds, life-changing. We fell in love with everything. The food, the people, the coffee, the weather, the atmosphere, the culture, you name it, we loved it. We walked around all over Portland and ate Voodoo donuts and the best grilled cheese ever from a food cart, had coffee at Heart, caught up with some old friends over ice cream, explored Powell's, did a little shopping at H&M and then caught the train back to Aloha, OR where we were staying. It was such an amazing day. I wish we could go back and do it all again.

When we got off the train and were waiting on our friends to pick us up we even caught the super moon!

Advent: day 9

Day 9: Do some Christmas shopping.

Today we headed up to Rogers, AR to do some Christmas shopping with Fletcher's mom. I got all of Fletcher's presents and a few things for me. The Pacsun is going out of business so I scored two dresses, a pair of shoes, a scarf and a belt for my friend for about $40! That's how much one of the dresses originally was! I'll post pics of my finds soon. Anyway, back to Christmas!!! The mall was decorated so beautifully. It was cold but well worth it.

christmas presents

Friday my sister, Fletcher and I set out to get some Christmas shopping done. Little did we know that we would be out shopping for 12 hours straight! The upside is we all got 99% of our shopping done. I have 1 present left to get, Mendy has 1 or 2 left and Fletcher is done (of course, because I did most of it he was just along to drive us around.) It was a lot of fun! We went to 2 different malls, target, barnes & noble and a few other local places. Here's what we came back with...

It was quite a haul.

Then we ended up wrapping presents for 2 hours after we got home! So, we didn't get to bed until around 3 a.m. that night but it was all worth it. My tree looks happy with lots of pretty presents under it. 

Black Friday

Today I experienced my very first Black Friday. My Mom, Dad, Fletcher and I got up at 4 o' clock this morning and headed straight to our local Wal-Mart. The town that my parents live in has a population of about 3,000 people. So, needless to say, Black Friday isn't as much of a fight here. We got there about 4:30 and each got into different lines for different items. I grabbed a Canon Rebel, my Mom grabbed a laptop, Fletcher grabbed a tv and Fletcher's mom, who met us there, grabbed an Xbox 360 for Fletcher's Christmas present (shh...don't tell him). We got everything that we wanted! It was awesome! I'm very glad that I had a good first Black Friday experience. I heard a lot of horror stories of people who were in much larger towns and I don't think I could have fought the crowds. We also grabbed some little Christmas gifts and some dvds. The thing I'm excited about the most is my camera. I have been wanting a Canon for at least 3 years now.

Here are some of the first pictures I took with my new camera today...



My favorite part of Thanksgiving.


My pretty girl, Petey.


My Mom's puppy, Trucker.


View from my parent's back deck.