The Bemilie Blog

It’s hard to believe how quickly time flies by. In the beginning of January I was hired on as a teller my local Washington Mutual branch, a job that I’m finding to be more complicated than I had originally anticipated, but I’m enjoying the challenge. I would bore quickly if my new career path was mundane early on. Ben is still enjoying his job with Sisters of Saint Mary of Oregon doing tech support and web programming for the variety of organizations they have on their acreage.

Over President’s day weekend Ben and I flew down to LA for his little brother’s Bar Mitzvah. The weekend was jam packed with exciting events, including a trip to Magic Mountain for the two of us. It was so nice for me to finally meet the extensive branches of Ben’s family, many of whom for one reason or another couldn’t make it to our wedding. What a crowd to share my first Bar Mitzvah with! The visit was far too brief, but never-the-less a delightful one.

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

My parents drove up from Sacramento for a nice weekend visit November 18 & 19. It was nice to be able to spend time with them in our home and just relax and chat. We spent a good part of Sunday driving around Portland trying to find open houses to look at. Ben and I are trying to figure out what kind of house we can get for our budget in this area. What we found is that we’re going to have to definitely save up for a while before really looking in earnest for a place to call our own.

Ben had to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving so we decided that it would be best if we just stayed home and celebrated the holiday with just the two of us. I found a recipe for turkey breast with corn bread stuffing. With green beans, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, it was the perfect amount of food for just the two of us, if not still a little too much. We enjoyed the food and the day off together.

Since coming home and realizing that all of our wedding gifts need to be put somewhere in order for us to have a home which is not filled with boxes and so that we may utilize all the wonderful gifts properly we needed to put everything in it’s proper place. We realized after unpacking and putting all of our Fiesta Ware away that we have a serious storage issue on our hands. We knew when we moved into our little town home that we would have difficulties with storage, but not this much of a problem! So, for a few weeks after the wedding Ben and I discussed how to best solve our kitchen storage problem and decided that a cabinet of some sort might be the best option and set out to furniture stores contemplating the differences in wood tone, size, quality, style, and most importantly price. We also required that the piece that we purchased have drawers in addition to cabinets to store table linens.

We finally discovered a china hutch that we could buy the top or the bottom separately if we so desired in a lovely medium wood finish at Dania Furniture in their Castillo collection. We also found a wine glass hutch in the same collection that we liked that could sit on top of the buffet.

So not too long after purchasing these lovely pieces of furniture they were delivered to our home and solved our storage dilemma for the time being. I’m happy that our formal china, food processor, bread machine, crock pot, and table linens all have a safe and beautiful home now.

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

After returning from our nice honeymoon at Cannon Beach, OR Ben and I have settled, reluctantly, back into post-wedding reality. We are slowly sorting through the wedding presents and finding places for things – like two large appliances we thought we wouldn’t actually receive but did.

I am very excited about our crock pot and bread machine though. Yesterday after I got home from work I broke open the box for the bread machine and started reading the instruction manual for the bread machine. It was a wedding gift from my God-Parents and I remember the weekends I would stay with them and my godmother and I would bake bread in her bread machine. It was like magic peaking in that tiny 2″ window on the lid to see it slowly progress, until finally we could taste what we’d been smelling bake for hours. Needless to say I can’t wait to use it.

We’ve started using the Fiestaware as our everyday plates. Our cupboard has become much more colorful, Ben and I both have our favorite color in the collection, but its fun to mix and match too. We’ve traded out our silverware as well, it’s so nice to have real silverware. I can’t even begin to describe how nice it is.

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

Emilie