Goodbye, old girl

The time has come. Amy and I are leaving Oregon. Or more accurately, have left Oregon. As we faced all of the uncertainty and indecision of being jobless and wondered what to do, some things became very clear. I had a lot of jobs I was pursuing in Utah and everything that I had been pursuing in Oregon had fallen through the cracks. Even Dick's Sporting Goods didn't want me! Then we realized that schools in Utah started on August 22nd, and that if we wanted our kids not to miss weeks of school, we needed to get out here and get them started. Luckily we had a vacation planned here anyway for my brother's wedding, so we decided to come and stay.

We have been here for about 5 weeks, living in my MILs basement. (Thanks, Bob and Linda!) And meanwhile, I have been interviewing for jobs, we have put our house for sale in Oregon, and we have are shopping for houses here. A couple of weeks ago, I flew back to Portland with my little sister (Thanks, Beccy!) to pack up my house and load it into two big containers to be shipped to Salt Lake and drive our cars back to Utah. And Amy stayed here on her own and got to deal with getting the kids to school and trying to prevent them from breaking my in-laws furniture. It has been a fun few weeks.

But we are here. And I have a job (Thanks, Old Navy!!) and our house in Oregon is under contract (Thanks, jerks who bought our house and who are asking for a bunch of unnecessary repairs!) and we are under contract to buy a house here (Thanks, OCD old lady for keeping your awesome 70s split-level in immaculate condition!) So life is getting better.

I wanted to take a moment to list a few things I will miss about Oregon, and a few things that I am excited about in Utah. Let me say first it goes without saying that what I will miss the most are my friends in Oregon, and what I am most excited about are my friends and family in Utah. But that would be a boring blog. So I know these are all superficial and inconsequential, but they still matter.

Goodbye, Oregon. Thank you for:

1. Trader Joe's. I have blogged about my love of Trader Joe's before. And many of you may just not get it. Even if you have visited a Trader Joe's once or twice, you probably think, "What's the big deal?" But when you live by one and do 80% of your shopping there a week, it changes your life and the way you eat. I'll miss having my kids hunt for Moto the monkey and getting a free sucker for finding him. Goodbye Floes, Peach Pops, Salsa Authentica, Joe Joe's, Chili Sauce, Cherry Jam, Hamburger Buns, Pizza Dough, Goat Cheese, Goat Cheese with Honey, Goat cheese rolled in blueberries, Orange Chicken, White Balsamic, Gnocchi with Gorgonzola cream sauce, lemon curd, bagged arugula and many, many more things I have forgotten. (Please feel free to share your favorite Trader Joe's items in the comments!!)

2. My Favorite Muffin. What's better than a bagel sandwich and a giant muffin and then getting really fat? This place makes the best. I will miss you, Sicilian Sandwich on a spinach bagel and a coconut cream muffin!! (Honorable mention to Burgerville and their sweet potato fries and walla walla onion rings.)

3. Agriculture. I know Utah has agriculture (we export sagebrush, right?) But we have made it a tradition to partake of the lovely agri-business that were all about 5 minutes from our home. We loved cutting down our own Christmas trees.

Picking our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.

Harvesting raspberries from Smith Berry Barn. And I love that we pay for the privilege of harvesting ourselves.

4. It's so pretty here! Utah certainly has its own beauty which I didn't really realize until I didn't live here for a while. But Oregon will always hold a special place in my heart. I love the forests
and the coast and the tulip festival.

I kind of look like a 85 year old woman in this photo

That tree was in my backyard!!

5. Powells. Its the country's largest independent bookstore. And it is amazing. And beautiful. And the books are so cheap. We would go every year for Bingham Book Day. BBD just won't be the same at the local Barnes and Noble.

6. No Sales Tax. On ANYTHING!! I still can't get my head around it here. I had to buy a new cell phone and had to pay like $15 in tax!! And whenever I but a $.99 fountain drink I am really annoyed when the total is actually $1.06 or whatever. I hate you, sales tax.

I hope when my kids grow up and get married that they all move to Oregon, so I have no choice but to follow them there. Because I hate the idea that I am done with Oregon. Who knows what life will bring.

So onto Utah. Of course, as I said the greatest thing about living in Utah is being close to friends and family and having people that can come to Jonah's baseball games, or Sunday dinners, or piano recitals. Utah has really hipped itself up in the last few year, with the Ikea and the H&M and the fancy local restaurants. Here are the other superficial things I am excited about.

1. Holiday Oil. If you live in the Holladay area (why isn't it called Holladay Oil, you may ask?) is there a greater gas station chain on earth than the Holiday Oil? They have a wide variety of fountain beverages (I am enjoying a Holiday Oil Diet Coke in a Styrofoam cup as we speak.) including Fresca! Don't you sometimes need a fountain Fresca?! Where else can you get that?! They also sell these little beauties:

The Dunford Bakery Chocolate Cake donut. They are so delicious and so chocolatey. You can buy a big box of them from Costco and when we were visiting here we would always get one "because Jonah liked them." Then Jonah would eat 2/3 of one and we would eat the other 17 1/3. They are dangerous. And delicious. In the few short weeks that we have been here, Noel has also become obsessed and asks us every single morning what time we are going to Holiday Oil. 

2. Cafe Rio I know it is cliché. And I know you have to wait in line with a bunch of Moms who have had boob-jobs and who are part-time wedding photographers and who drove up in their Ford Escalades. But it's super popular for a reason! The food is dang good and you get a lot of it. It makes the best take out for watching TV after the kids have gone to bed and you just want something yummy while you watch So You Think You Can Dance. 

3. Great Harvest Bread We had this lovely institution in Hillsboro, but the bread was usually either over cooked and a little dry or the wheat wasn't ground all the way so the bread was a little crunchy. And the people who ran it were slow and grouchy. And you had to ASK for a sample, which they would begrudgingly shave of a tiny sliver for you. The bread at the Great Harvest Bread Co. here is always fresh and delicious, they have a much bigger selection and they practically force you to take a sample. And it is always warm and about as big as a quarter of a loaf of bread. 

4. Theatre  I am certain that there is fabulous theatre in Portland. But when you have small kids, it is easier to not make the effort to get a babysitter, drive downtown, find parking and attend a show Which makes our total number of live theatre outings while living in Portland zero. But in Utah we have a lot of friends that act in and direct plays, which makes it much more easy to get off our badonkadonks and go see something. Last week we saw the FANTASTIC The Drowsy Chaperone at the Hale Center Theatre in Orem starring our friend Brett Merritt. It was great. If you live in or near Utah County, there is no excuse not to see this show. But it also reminded me how much fun live theatre is. Can't wait to see lots more stuff!

I am sure there are things I left off this list, but it took me about a month to get this blog put together, so I better just publish. We are truly glad and grateful to be back.