Turning 23

     I celebrated my 23rd birthday on June 20th. It was a wonderful day spent with my family. I had a relaxing morning and then we headed off around 3:15 for Olive Garden. My parents started this tradition years ago where the birthday girl gets to pick a restaurant to eat at on their special day. I usually go back and forth between Red Lobster and Olive Garden, but since I became a vegetarian recently, Olive Garden was the place to go.

      I'm usually the one in the family that bakes the birthday cakes. But when I started talking about baking one for my birthday, Britt quickly put a stop to the idea. She said that she and Brielle were going to bake me a cake. And they kept the recipe a surprise- I had no idea what they were going to make. The cake was delicious! There were four layers and it was chocolate heaven for me :)

     Another great birthday spent with my awesome family.

OSU Graduation

     I'm finally going to be all caught up with my posts after this one. Yay! :) On June 17th, I graduated from Oregon State University. I received my Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Sciences, with a focus on Child Development. Wow, that's a mouthful! The process of graduation was long and tiring, but at the same time, so worth it! So thanks, Dad, for talking me into walking. We left my parents' place in Grants Pass around 9:30am and didn't get back home until about 10:00pm, maybe even a little later. By the time we got back, I was a little out of it- exhausted!

     Another awesome thing about graduation was having Michelle Obama speak. Regardless of politics, having the First Lady at my graduation was definitely memorable. She was a wonderful speaker and it was very heartfelt. She shared a lot about her upbringing and family, things that I had never known.

     And now get ready for a lot of pictures :)

     It's still hard for me to believe that I've finished college. But that could also be due to me starting grad school on the 25th :) I have a lot of wonderful memories at OSU and Corvallis. I'm going to miss it, but at the same time, I'm excited to see what happens next.

Trip to Portland

     Okay, you are going to have to bear with me while I play catch-up. But on a side note: I have been a vegetarian for a week now, as of yesterday :)
     On June 1st, I went up to Portland with some of my friends for the weekend. It was the first time I've ever really been able to explore Portland and I loved it! There's a part of me that loves cities. I love New York City, Seattle, and now I can add Portland to the list. I've always wanted to live in a city, not forever, but maybe for a year or so. There's always so much to see and do. But anyway, back to my Portland trip.
     The first stop was to this place:

      Powell's Books is the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world! And it was amazing, especially for a bookworm like me. Books everywhere!
     I found this really neat statue in one of the parks:

      And I finally completed one of my goals: to eat at Voodoo Doughnut. I've wanted to check out this place ever since I saw it on an episode of "Man vs. Food". And the doughnuts did not let me down. They were just as delicious as I had imagined. I got their trademark one, the "Voodoo Doll".

      We stopped at this great coffee shop and I ordered a vanilla latte. When I looked down into my cup, this is what I saw. A heart.

      This is Jamison Square. There is this awesome fountain that the kids love to play in. At different times, the water will turn on like a waterfall and create this shallow pool on the ground. The water will drain after a time, and then a little bit later, the waterfall will start again.

      We stopped at an Italian place for lunch. It was delicious! And the restaurant had this really authentic feel.

 Spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and parsley. Yummy!

     And that was my trip to Portland. Britt and I are hoping to make a trip together this summer. Maybe the next time I go, I'll be able to check out the Market by the waterfront. I wasn't able to see it this time around because the place was being used for the Rose Festival.

A Promise for More

      Wow, I was just looking over my last post, and I realized that I haven't written anything since May. And it's June! I was right about one thing: the time has flown! It's been a crazy mess of going to Portland for the weekend, leaving Ross, moving everything out of my apartment, final projects, getting everything situated for grad school, and studying for finals. Which is what I'm doing tonight, by the way. I'm learning about this:

      I'm taking a Geography class, it was something that my grad school wanted, but it's actually turned out to be a very interesting class. My class has also led me to make a big change. For a final project, we had to research something we were interested in and then relate it back to the class. I chose to research veganism. And I have decided to make a change and will be:

     I have always been a little different than the rest of my family when it comes to diet. As my dad likes to say, "I'm a carnivore". And that was never the case for me. Unlike my family, I don't like steak. I'm actually not a big beef person in general. The only thing I really eat is chicken. For several different reasons, and after a lot of research, I've decided to give this a shot. I might even try being vegan, but I think that I would miss cheese and ice cream too much :)

     I have to get back to studying, but I promise to post more soon. I'll be done with school tomorrow, so I'll have a little more free time on my hands.