The Bemilie Blog

About two months ago a friend of ours sent out an email to all of her friends stating that she was putting together a team for the Susan G. Komen Race for the cure (http://www.komenoregon.org/) in honor of her mother who is a breast cancer survivor. We joined 45,000 people at the Portland waterfront park early Sunday morning for a 5K walk for the cure. What an amazing day. There were moments during the two hours where you would look back down the hill you were walking up and see the thousands of other people walking, and you just think: “Wow.”

Now that Christmas is over, I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic. I was thinking the other night as I gazed at out sparkling little tree, all of five foot three in it’s splendor – which has quite a bit more in the way of “dressings” than when we first put it up a month ago – and remembering back to all of those Christmases that I’ve spent with my various family members. Honestly this is something I’ve done every year since moving out of my parents home, the big difference this year is that it would be just me and Ben enjoying the holiday at home this year. This was a difficult but necessary choice for us to make considering the cost of travel and a myriad of other reasons.

Ben’s dad gave us a call not too far in to December with news that he had a free ticket for Southwest that he had to use by the end of the year and what a better way to use it that to come up to Portland for a brief visit. What a nice little treat. During his visit the three of us took a trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) to catch the Star Wars exhibit before it left. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice dinner in down town Portland, all the while enjoying the extra little sparkle the city gets around the holidays. When we got back home, Ben and his dad lit candles for the third night of Hanukkah – a new but exciting experience for me.

On the 23rd Ben and I attended a fun little holiday gathering across the river in Vancouver and got to meet some new people as well as reconnect with some friends we hadn’t seen in a little while.

Christmas Eve and Day were both relatively uneventful. We spent them both at home, enjoying each other’s company and a little time off together. We exchanged presents Christmas morning and ate a nice ham dinner that evening. We watched on of my holiday favorites, “A Christmas Story”, and Ben worked feverishly on his new Knex roller coaster set which had been a gift from his family. Hopefully we will build family traditions over the coming years to enjoy.

That’s it from the newlywed home for now. Until next time,

Emilie

Ben and I have been officially living in the Portland area now for just over three and a half months and I realized a few days ago that we are still merely transplants into this city. What I mean by this is that Ben and I really don’t know that much about this town outside of what is near our home and the popular touristy spots. This was okay for the two months pre-wedding when we really had no time to do anything outside of planning for the big day, but now that we’re settling in to a routine it would be nice, I think, to know more about this town than a tourist with a good guide book. However, that might be a decent place to start.

One way for this to happen is for us to actually listen to suggestions from our friends that have been living in the area longer than us. Our good friend Kam convinced us not too long ago that we should go out dancing with him. This wasn’t your typical night club dancing! This was a place to learn what I like to call real dancing. The evening started out with an hour long tango lesson followed by an hour long blues dance lesson. The evening was capped by four hours of free dancing to tango and blues music. Joy! With our basic knowledge we could move around the floor comfortably, but it was just as much fun to watch the other couples who really knew what they were doing take full command of the floor.

On Saturday morning Ben and I were standing in the check out line at the Safeway near our house to purchase milk and, as one does while waiting in the grocery store checkout line, I glanced over the magazine rack past the tabloids and much to my joy I discovered Portland Monthly magazine. After thumbing through the pages I thought it might be a good place to start in our quest to know Portland. It is nice to have in hand a magazine that feels like it’s written for natives and newbies alike. I already have plotted out a few places and things for us to check out from this month’s issue.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print. Until next time,

Emilie