Formal Bowling 2009/10

Once again, we brought in the new year at the bowling alley! I believe this was our 4th annual Formal Bowling event and we had a great turnout again this year! It's always interesting to see who shows up besides our core group of about a dozen people. Such good, clean fun!

I decided to try something a little different with my hair this year! The running joke of the night was that I looked like I was from the 30's. My sister gifted me with a hand knit black shawl for Christmas. I didn't get a photo with it on but it really made the outfit! If someone had to remind me that it was my turn to bowl they would say, "Well, they weren't very punctual in the 30's!"

This year Blu (Doozie's son - Doozie being Heather's roommate) joined us for the night. He pulls off that stud look quite well, I must say!


Jordan had the whole James Bond look down! I forgot to look for a pair of dark sunglasses for him. :)




He loved the look for the night and was just soaking up everybody's comments about how handsome and cute he looked! He told me over and over how he's looking forward to wearing a tux when Steve and I get married. :) I must say, the bowtie is a good look for him.


My sweetie and I!


If we had an award for "most original outfit" Cary would win every year, hands down. And he would win proudly.


Kendra seems to be the one who always steals elements of other people's outfits. Here she is sporting Cary's tie and Caleb's jacket!




Alaina came along for the fun but spent her evening going through scholarship applications. I'm pretty sure the look on her face accurately portrays her feelings on the subject at this point.


Various people stayed for various lengths of time this year so instead of taking a group photo we took one of the guys (there are 4 missing who came later [and they were the best dressed of the group]) and one of the girls.


It was TOTALLY unplanned that all of the girls wore black dresses!


And once again, I rang in my new year with a kiss from the most wonderful person in my life.

This morning I slept in quite late (the house was unusually quiet for as many people as there are here!) and so far I pretty much haven't gotten out of bed! It's 1pm and Blu and Jeff (Heather's boyfriend) are cooking "breakfast" which smells amazing! Butternut squash hashbrowns and omelets! Really, what could be better?

Tonight Steve and I have plans to celebrate the first day of the year with a date!

Wishng you and yours a very healthy, happy new year! Here's to 2010! :)

Formal Bowling 2008/9!

Formal bowling was a smashing success this year! We had 23 people show up over the course of the night. Here's a (rather dark) picture of the group around midnight!

The founders of the tradition:

This is Kyle. He used to live next door to me and he and Jordan became best buds (as well as him and I becoming good friends). Jordan was SO excited that he showed up last night.

Mohammed was one of "the Saudi's" who was always next door at Kyle's.

Stacy's celebration dance!

Megan's celebration dance!

These three girls were so great about sharing their lane with a 7-year-old.

So smooth!

Team bowling!

Jordan totally needs a hat like this. He could not get enough of it.

Here's a short video of Mohammed and Kyle getting their dance on. This is a glimpse of pretty much what the whole night was like. :) SO FUN!

PORTLAND!

I got to go stay with Stacy!! I seriously looked forward to this weekend for weeks. =) I was a little bit nervous about FINDING her place but she gives absolutely awesome directions and I had no trouble whatsoever (same for the return trip). When we stepped onto her floor it smelled SO good because she was making curry for dinner! I had never had it before and I'm making it for my family tomorrow.

After dinner we walked several blocks up the street to a place called Bartini. They had a menu of over 100 martinis and it was amazing! It was a tiny, dark little place with soft lighting and we decided that we would give it a good review. Here's Stacy sipping on my Peach Bliss while holding her Mint Mojitotini.

Cheers!
Friday night we went to bed at a somewhat decent time and then talked for a good hour, which we haven't done in YEARS. We got up in the morning and took the street car down to the Pearl and walked and walked and walked and took pictures and then more pictures. (I think we found out it was 88 that day but it sure seemed hotter!)

This is in front of a cool park we went to with billions of kids playing in the water/fountain.

I took this picture because I think Shoefly is just a really cool name for a shoe store.

We took lots of pictures of this old loading dock because it was so artsy! As we walked around I seriously kept thinking, "Wow, Jonathan and Carrie would LOVE to take pictures here!"


Another old building we admired


And what's a trip to downtown Portland without a visit to Powell's?


I always end up in the children's section and bought 2 books for Jordan and one for myself (not in the children's section).

We stopped at a secondhand store and I bought a super cute skirt and Stacy could NOT resist trying on these boots. Madre would have been proud.

Walking through Old Town

And through China Town!

Saturday Market! This guy was really good at playing the buckets. I could have sat and listened to him for quite some time (if there had been shade).

These bicycle cart things were all over. This guy in particular reminded me of a friend of ours. Even the hat.



This group was really cool! They were singing "Walking on Broken Glass" when we walked up and they had choreographed a whole dance to go along with it. The girl in the white skirt was the lead singer and the girl on the far right in the purple was beatboxing.

Then we walked in to the beer garden area and these people were playing. I could have sat and listened to them for a long time. Heck, I would have spent all DAY at the Saturday Market if I could have!



I was hoping to see a person pretending to be a statue but we never did. Instead, we took a picture with this lovely pirate.

By that point we were hungry and HOT so we stopped at Mio Gelato and had DELICIOUS gelato for lunch. (When I got home the vote for dinner was banana splits.)

Yum!
There were so many times that I laughed out loud at random things I saw. This was one of them.
I can't wait to go again! I had such a great time with Stacy and I was thrilled to finally get to walk around downtown Portland and look at everything. There are so many sights and smells and sounds... I would love to spend several days there and I still wouldn't see everything I wanted to.