Old Friends & Good Friends

This weekend my family drove to Salem, Oregon, to attend my cousin Ben's wedding! It was so much fun to see my old friend, Salem, and my good friends, Courtney, Amy & Jen. It was also a pleasure to attend my cousin's wedding!

While with my old friend & good friends I...

...ate at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse! I highly recommend this restaurant. Their meals range from $8-$12, and this includes a good sized entree, salad, bread, and dessert!!! It was so yummy!

...walked to Dutch Bros with Heidi and Nathan to re-live the taste of an iced kicker!

...ran with Amy (for a bit) and my dad through Bush Park AND Minto Brown Park!

...soaked up the sights of my old favorite spots.

...enjoyed my cousin's sweet and simple wedding!

And then we spent an extra 2 hours on the way home, taking the "scenic byway"!

But it was worth it!

CU* L8r

*pun intended

It is so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I am done here, at Corban University. I've been to my last chapel, my last meal at Aramark (our dining hall), my last class. I've run repeats up Schimmel hill and gone to 6am morning weights for the last time. I've worked my last shift at the gym and tutored for the last time. After two great years, God is calling me elsewhere in life. And I sure won't complain! I'm super excited to be the wife of Jason Paul Koemans and to pursue God and ministry together!!

This is what I probably won't miss about being at CU:

- 6am workout classes

- cafeteria food (minus the dessert!!)

- dorm life. not that it's terrible, it's just not my favorite thing, especially when all my friends are off- campus or in different states

- dirty pop music in the bathroom

- laundry only on certain days

- searching everywhere for a private space to make phone call

- not having any space that's truly just mine

- 5hr shifts at the gym, leaving no time for homework and no chance at a good bedtime

- eating alone in the cafeteria for 70% of my meals

- being 18hrs away from the love of my life

- the lonely and sometimes dark walk uphill from dinner to my room at night

- hours and hours and hours and hours of homework and studying

- only seeing my family over skype

- a gross & messy shared kitchen

This is what I probably will miss:

- friendly mail-room ladies, and the excitement of getting mail

- chapel 3 times a week

- rooming with Kate Tracy

- collegiate running

- the team, especially the distance crew...I'm gonna miss them a lot.

- Aramark dessert

- studying at coffee shops, especially Broadway, Ike, and Clockworks

- running at Bush Park

- the sunsets

- the green grass all.year.long

- the rain

- the flowers

- the professors, especially Shannon Simmons and Anne Jeffers

- Trader Joe's & Fred Meyer

- Sweet Papaya's frozen yogurt

- staying at the Fanny House (where Mel and Courtney lived)

- Mel, Courtney, Christi, Amy, and JenJen

- running and talking with the distance girls

- steeplechase

Regardless of missing this and not missing that, I am so looking forward to the next chapter of my life!!!!! Marriage!!

Did you figure out the pun?

Enjoying Life...

(yes we have matching shorts! mine were my birthday present from him!!)

Jason got here on Wednesday, my birthday, morning, and it has been so wonderful being with him and showing him around here! After I picked him up from the airport in Portland, we went to Ikea, then came back to Salem to go to Costco and Walmart to get groceries for our team bbq (aka: my birthday party). Then most of the team piled into cars and drove up to Silver Creek Falls for an afternoon of hiking, having fun, and eating burgers! It was a very simple party and a lot of fun for everyone and a beautiful day! Then today Jase and I went to a yummy waffle place for breakfast and headed up to the outlet malls in Woodburn where I shopped with my birthday  money and got a nice pair of nike flip-flops, 2 running shorts, 2 running/summer tanks, a polo, and capris and a shirt for Jase! (thanks mom and dad!) We came back for my practice and then 2 rounds of disk-golf with some of the team, dinner, worship, and Chariots of Fire! It has been a great two days to spend with the love of my life!!!

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

A couple of weeks ago, Mel and I took an afternoon to drive up to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, OR. It was a rainy afternoon, but we still had fun, and for some reason we got in free too! Here are some pics that Mel took! (She is a great photographer!!) There were SO many pretty colors of tulips!!