August is Awesome

Aaaaannnd, we're back.  I never know how to start these blogs.  I feel like no matter what I do, the beginnings end up cheesy.  Ah, well.  If the cheese-factor is too high, just skip the first paragraph or so.

So where to begin?  It's been quite a summer!  I know I've said that already, but it's really true.  It feels like we've been going non-stop for weeks now.  Over the last few weeks Jason has been studying hard-- in addition to his classes to get his real estate license, he's been doing other classes as well.  He has just finished his licensing to become a mortgage loan officer, and so now can officially get you a home loan!  He'll be transitioning into his new job title here shortly, which is awesome.  So, if you know anyone in Oregon that needs or wants a home loan, send them his way!

Over the Fourth of July, Jason and I each took trips-- I went to Colorado to visit Lara and Kimberly, and Jason went to Yosemite with his dad.  Here are some pictures from Jason's trip:

My trip was AMAZING-- Colorado is pretty cool.  I spent the first few days with Kimberly Perez in Boulder, hanging out and catching up.

The first day I was there, Kimberly had to work, so I headed down to the Pearl Street mall, and I took a free yoga class at the Patagonia store there. It was a total trip.  It was in the basement of the Patagonia store, which had some dirty floors, and the mats all had holes in them.  That was cool, you know it's a free class, so how much can you really expect them to put into it?

I'm used to classes taught by ladies who clearly do yoga for the workout, in Lululemon expensive pants, making you sweat.  This instructor was a dude, rather hippie-esque, with long hair, clearly dirty feet-- you know the type.  He played reggae the whole time, which was the first indicator of what type of class I'd gotten myself into.  The class, probably because it was free, had several interesting characters attending-- one dude was a little older, really super lean (like almost too skinny-- stringy).  He had a huge cut on his shin that was bleeding profusely throughout the whole class, wasn't wearing a shirt, and at the end of every difficult pose, would let out the longest and loudest "AAAAAAAAHHHHHH" I've ever heard.  I was honestly slightly worried about his health.  The other participants were pretty normal hippies, but there was one lady who had clearly never taken a yoga class before because she was in jeans, and the girl next to me was wearing a midriff cutoff shirt with beaded fringe, had long dreads, and judging both by her feet and her odor, hadn't showered in a while.

But, you know, whatever.  It's yoga.  So we start to get into the class, with the reggae guiding us, stretching and doing some poses, with the instructor asking us what we wanted to do every five minutes.  We got about an hour into the class, and then the instructor really wanted us to mix it up.  So he asked us to get up, and to really get into the music.  You know, start dancing in place.  Doin' some sweet reggae dance moves.  So I'm going along with it, a little self-conscious (reggae dance moves?), and then we need to mix it up again.  So the instructor has us take these sweet moves he's taught us (which is basically some white person version of African dance), and we start doing these moves in circles around the studio.  Gotta get that movement in, man!  Circle, circle, hip thrust, arms up-- you get the idea.  But clearly the energy of the sweet reggae dancing isn't exactly what he had in mind, so he adds another element.  Now as we circle around the room, grooving, hip thrusting, and jamming, we are high-fiving each participant that we pass.  Step, step, hip thrust, squat dance thingy, arms out, high five, man!

Seriously.  By the time we were done, I was laughing out loud.  It was hilarious.  Needless to say, hippie feet girl and super-skinny bleeding man were totally into it.  Upon catching up with Kimberly that night at her apartment, she explained that this was probably just the ritual welcome to Boulder that I had experienced-- a true experience that many tourists miss when visiting the more popular (and expensive) yoga studios that dominate the Boulder landscape.  I felt honored to have been given such a beautiful and meaningful welcome.  Thanks, Boulder.  I love you too.

The most amazing Kimberly Perez showed me other amazing Boulder sights-- we went up into the mountains and visited a super cute little town called Nederland, we hung out in Boulder, we dipped our feet in the river, ate wonderful food... it was fantastic.

I love my awkward arm placement.

After that, I picked up a rental car and drove to a small town called Gothic just outside of Crested Butte to meet up with Lara at her summer research site.  The location was amazing-- right at the base of mountains, in a tiny little researcher town with gravel roads, basically smack in the middle of national forest.  She was there for three months this summer, starting some research regarding plants and climate change.  Lara, baby Mila and I stayed in her little cabin in the woods, and I helped her get her site set up for the summer.  It was awesome!  The weather was gorgeous, the views were gorgeous, the town of Crested Butte is gorgeous-- it was a fantastic trip.  Baby Mila, in case you were wondering, is still the cutest baby ever.  She's almost 2 now, so I guess not really a baby anymore, but so much fun to hang out with!  And it was awesome to get to catch up with Lara, who I hadn't seen since her trip to Portland last year. I did miss seeing Beef, which was very sad, but hopefully I'll get to catch up with him soon.  We did get to Skype, which was awesome.  Here are some photos of this extremely photogenic holiday:

See what I mean?  Gorgeous.

Ready to start work at the site.

Rough spot for research, right?

On a hike to see a waterfall.

Hilarious statues in Crested Butte.

I couldn't help it.  She's just so damn cute!

I got back from that trip on a Thursday, and Friday night Jason and I headed out again, this time together and this time to Washington, where a friend was having a birthday celebration at a house off of North Bay.  Again, it was gorgeous.  It was like I was on a scenic gluttony tour.  We camped in their backyard, and spent the entire weekend in the sun, playing Catan, going out on kayaks, hanging out and celebrating birthdays.  Brad's birthday was just after mine, but I really felt as though they had put the entire weekend together to celebrate my birthday.  It was amazing.  Best birthday weekend I've had in a long time, complete with food so delicious and ridiculous that we ate it all before I could even take a picture.  Regardless, here are some photos that will both make you jealous, and convince you that we actually lie about the weather in the Pacific NW so that no one else will move here:

The excellent weekend crew, courtesy of Brad Cole.

Ready for kayaking.

Men.  Doing man things.

Soaking it in.

Not a bad place to sleep.

Album cover.

Best photo bomb EVER.

Courtesy of Alex Graham.

Yup.  I told you.  Summer out here is FANTASTIC.  Not too hot, beautifully green and lush, with so many cool things to do and places to see...  it's amazing.  It's just too bad that it's so damn short!  Although I do feel like we've had a long summer so far-- it started early this year, which is nice.  Like it was apologizing to Jason for all the rain during the winter (although, don't tell Jason, it was a seriously dry winter this year).

Anyway.  We headed home, regretfully, from Washington, after threatening to move in with Brad and Katelin, which I'm sure they really would have appreciated.  Who wouldn't want to live with us?  Tuesday night, my little brother Chance flew into town for a visit!  He is headed out to college at Brown University this fall, and we were really excited for him to come up for a visit before flying out east.  He spent a few days with my grandmother, and then for the weekend we drove up to join them.  Look at how cute and photogenic we are:

Chance and Grandma

I just love her.

We're a family! 

I love hanging out with my family.  They're pretty cool, in case you didn't know.  I'm so excited to see where life takes Chance, and what amazing things he makes of it.  I'm pretty proud of that ridiculously smart brother of mine.

Our summer hasn't all been fun and games, though.  Jason's grandfather passed away in late July.  We took an unplanned trip to Kansas for the funeral, which was really sad.  Funerals are always crazy things-- it's such a sad event to bring people together, and at the same time it's hard not to enjoy seeing all the people that you love in one place. It was really wonderful to see Jason's family-- they are all so excited for this baby, so supportive and loving.  It was fun to be able to share being pregnant with them, despite the sad circumstances.  Clearly, we didn't take many photos while there, but I did get a good one with Jason's Uncle Bob, who holds a special place in this Dunbar's heart:

He's pretty cool.  I guess I like him.  :)

Jason's mom bought us some amazing baby gifts, including some ridiculously cute baby clothes-- holy crap, you guys.  Little baby clothes are CUTE.  Jason has taken to holding some of the clothing up over his shoulder like it's the baby, and pretending to bounce and burp the outfit.  It's pretty entertaining.  He's practicing.

Jason's birthday was this month, and this year, I was not going to fail (as I've done many other years in the past), and I was going to plan something cool!  So we got several friends together to go camping.  Our original plan was to head to Opal Creek, which is supposed to be some of the most beautiful hiking in old growth forest here in Oregon.  On the Friday night after Jason's birthday, we drove to just outside of Salem, up into the Willamette national forest.  Only, we arrived to find that the place was a zoo, completely overrun with cars and campers.  We headed out of there pretty quickly to try to find another site in some National Forest land-- packed.  We tried 5 separate established campgrounds, all of which were full.  We finally ended up camping on the side of a forest service road, just to get some sleep. 

I was afraid the weekend was ruined.  But after we cooked a little breakfast, road trip style, we checked back at a campground we had passed, and found a campsite had opened up!  It was right on Detroit Lake, just east of Salem, and the weekend was salvaged.  We did a 5 mile hike, kayaked in Luke's inflatable kayaks, ate burritos and had a campfire... Here's a little taste of the birthday weekend:

Cooking breakfast, road trip style.

This is the most amazing series of photos ever.

Campground kung-fu.

Sword practice.

Pregnant lady trying to get cell reception.  I was trying to find the other members of our party, I swear.

Sunset kayaking!

Last weekend was Karen Darr and Ian Mouser's wedding!  Check out these photos from the extremely gorgeous ceremony:

Yeah. Rough place to get married, huh?

In amidst all of this, we've been doing the usual.  I've started a Spanish class up again, which is awesome.  I go on Thursdays for a few hours of conversation, which is exactly what I need.   We've put up the crib in our back bedroom, which makes all this feel even more real.  My belly is getting bigger every day-- I think at this point, it must have it's own gravitational pull.  It certainly attracts a lot more food to my shirt than it ever used to.  We've got more nicknames for the small child, since MLM can't really be used anymore... Jason most often refers to her as LTB, or Lil' Tiny Baby.  He's brainstormed a few options for permanent names, too, including:
Karate (pronounced Kara-tay)
Miracles (pronounced Meer-ah-cleez)
Kicks-a-lot
Challenging (pronounced Shall-on-jing)
Or how about something more like Catan Wheat Marshall?  I like that one, myself.  :)

I mean, seriously.  Look at the size of that thing.

Baby crib!

 The other thing I've noticed about this stage is that I now have to pee pretty much constantly.  Just about every hour.  This makes trips to any store, or any drive, more entertaining.  Also, apparently baby shower season is starting, as we have three coming up in the next 2 months!  Creating a registry is harder than I thought.  How much stuff does one need for a baby?  Apparently, a ridiculous amount.  We just got a sweet tent in the mail from the Weiss'... I'm excited to put it to use at the crag! 

Speaking of the Weiss', here are a couple photos from that trip Jason took to CA to see them:

Matt, belaying attentively

Jason and Kristy

Bryan and Suzanne

Whew.  It's been a bit of tiring summer.  We have friends and family in town now, and more adventures planned for future weekends, so you can expect more blogging at a later date!  Word, friends.

Super Crazy Month

Hello again, friends!  You are probably thinking to yourself, "Karissa went and got herself knocked up, and now she won't even blog about it so that we can see her preggo belly."

Well, I'm back.  It's been an insane month!  Between baby things, and travel, and amazing Portland weather, we've been running non-stop.  So this is hopefully the first of two blog posts with a ridiculous number of photos.

Speaking of the weather-- it's been an AH-MAZING summer in Portland so far.  Like hot.  Almost too hot.  It's funny the number of Portlanders that complain about the heat, just as we're getting over too much rain.  Myself included!

The other thing that's funny about Portland and sunshine is that it's almost like it takes the town, which normally runs relatively slowly (everyone being hung over or in various stages of caffeinating), and turns it into this psycho whirlwind of activity.  Everything that anyone ever wanted to do in the summer has to be crammed into just a few months of sun, so people go beserk!  Barbeques, camping, water sports, bike rides, parks, festivals, farmers markets... it's mind-blowing.  Last summer Jason was a little confused by the never-ending stream of barbeques that we'd get invited to.  This year, he's taking off his shirt at any and every opportunity to take advantage of the glorious sunshine.

So, it's been full-tilt, and probably will be for another several weeks, at which point I'll be thankful for the rain so that I have an excuse to sit inside and do nothing instead of run around like crazy to fit it all in.  :)

So of course there are a ridiculous number of Jason-isms about me being pregnant/ us having a baby.  If you don't really care about baby stuff, you should probably just skip ahead for a while.

The most ridiculous so far is that he's been telling people he's "80% sure it's mine".  He's even told co-workers, who I've never met!  What must they think?

But in reality, that just makes me wonder-- does that mean it's 20% possible that this baby is from an immaculate conception with Channing Tatum?  I mean, seriously people. 

Jason is also concerned about my never-ending sugar cravings-- they were there before I got pregnant, and I'm not sure if they've gotten stronger, or if I'm just caving more often since I'm growing an actual human.  Anyway, he has regularly requested of me, "Please don't give our baby diabetes." 

He puts his face right next to my belly and asks, "Can you hear me in there?"  Actually, you'd be surprised, but he's really not the only one who not only wants to touch the belly, but wants to get up close and personal with it!  It's a really rather entertaining sight.

Oh yeah, it's a girl!  Exciting, right?  I totally cried when the ultrasound technician told us.  Sadly, this does mean MLM (Michael Lary Marshall) is out in terms of names.  I haven't yet come up with one as totally awesome for a girl.  We're working on it.  :)  Check out the ultrasound photos!

So the ultrasound-ologist also got some awesomely creepy baby photos... check these two out:

Predator baby!  Jason's so proud.

Scary, right?  Haunted baby.

My dad is convinced she has red hair.  He recommended for realism's sake that we draw the red hair onto the ultrasound, so everyone would really know what we were dealing with.

Jason has also said that we're not giving the baby any toys.  Also, not giving the baby any money.  He has already instructed her to get a job, so we'll be working on that pretty dang early.  :)  Good financial sense is a priority for him, clearly.

We haven't found a name yet-- we haven't even settled on a couple of options!  Or should I say, I haven't settled.  Jason apparently already has several names picked out, but he won't tell me, because he's afraid it's too early.  I need to get saying 'no' out of my system, so he's throwing out all kinds of random names, and then eventually he'll slip the real ones in there.  His other tactic is to name the baby after whoever is in the room at the moment, often combined into one long name.  Jessica Lara Cheryl Ashlee Dunbar Marshall, or SuzAngelaAntoinette Dunbar Marshall...

When I'm at work, he sends me messages: "Tell the baby hello!  Tell her I miss her."  It's extremely cute.

I've really been able to feel her movements more lately, which is exciting.  Every hour or so she wiggles around, or kicks the bladder.  But it's such a cool reassurance that all is going well, I really don't mind when I pee my pants a little.  :)  Just a few days ago, Jason felt her moving for the first time, which was AWESOME.  How crazy is it that there is a whole different human inside this human?  Really crazy.  Seriously.

Here's a preggo shot from mid-June:

And check it out now:

5 1/2 months exactly!

We're organizing our second bedroom, moving stuff around (and trying to get rid of stuff, which is hard for me to do!) so that we can actually fit the baby and all the STUFF that is bound to arrive with her.  We're almost there.  We've gotten a few gifts of adorable baby things already, though we haven't bought much ourselves.  Part of it is that I have no idea on earth what to buy.  What in the world does a baby really need?!?  Anyway, we'll figure it out.  We have a few friends in the area with baby stuff that just can't wait to pass it along to us!

Alright, enough of the baby stuff!  I swear I've been doing things other than thinking about babies.  Not that you'd know it from the first half of this post.

I helped to organize a totally awesome bachelorette party for Karen Darr, who is getting married in August.  We took Memorial Day weekend and spent it out at the coast, in a house we rented.  It was awesome-- there were three babies there, so it was definitely a baby-practicing weekend.  Hilary took lots of photos, so I'll post some of those here as soon as I get them from her.  The weather was beautiful, and it was a total blast.  Also, I have to say, I'm pretty good at planning games.  So there.

We went back to Knoxville!  Man, was it ever awesome.  I swear, about 20 minutes after arriving, it felt like I'd never left.  That wonderful warm blanket of humidity just swallowed me up, and I was home again.  We split our time between staying with Bentley and Jessica,  Blake and Ashlee, and Jonathan and Cheryl.  It wasn't quite the same without Biff and Lara, but we managed nonetheless.  It was everything I could have asked for-- great weather, wonderful friends, and of course we just ate and drank our way through the trip.  I think we both probably gained several pounds.  It was worth it.  Check out these awesome photos:

A few weekends ago, I had my 10th college reunion (seriously?  Am I that old?  And the answer is YES), and Jason took a  trip to northern California to hang out with the one and only Matthew Weiss.  We couldn't both be in two places at once, so we split the team to represent.  It was epic, of course.

First, it was awesome to see a bunch of LC friends again-- although to be honest, most of them I hang out with already.  I really did enjoy heading back up to the campus-- I haven't been there in AGES.  It's a pretty place.  And so it was awesome to hang out up there, reconnect with some folks, etc.  On Saturday of that weekend, we had the International Barbeque Symposium-- it's an annual barbeque that my friends started our senior year of college.  It's been happening every year since, and so this was eleventh.  It was perfect-- beautiful weather, tons of amazing food, just the right level of ridiculousness.  I have pretty cool friends, you know.  Here's some photos of the awesome:

And Sunday was Mikey's birthday.  Nicky, Dad, Carmen, George and I headed up to the property that George owns in Washington, and we had a barbeque to celebrate his birthday.  (Are you sensing a barbeque theme?  I'm not going to say I told you so.  But I did.)  It was nice.  That day is a little sad, always, but it's always nice to be able to spend it with family, and to remember both what we have now, and how much of Mikey we still have to celebrate.  And how much he changed all of us.

Milk fresh from the cow!

George's grill tools came out of the garden.

These dogs don't love my dad at all.

Family!

Sadly, we don't have any photos from Jason's epic California road trip, since I had the camera.  You'll have to ask him how it went.

We got invited out by one of Jason's co-workers who owns a boat, and spent the day on the Columbia River, swimming and sunning and living it up.  We ended the day with a delicious dinner on a houseboat converted into a restaurant, which was totally awesome.  We just motored the boat up there and parked, stuffed our faces and motored back.  It was such a gorgeous day-- it really reminded me of weekends spent out on the lake in Knoxville, which I miss terribly.  

We had a crazy air conditioner saga-- my dad really wanted to buy me an air conditioner for my birthday.  I was not so convinced I needed one.  So finally he went to the store and just picked one out, and brought it over.  The only thing was that it was broken.  So we had to return it, and by the time we went to return it, we'd had over a week of really hot weather, so almost every store in town was sold out of air conditioners.  I had resigned myself to more sweaty sleeping, and then we decided to stop at just one more store-- where we found the perfect air conditioner.  Of course, it was a window unit.  So we had to install the thing in the window, which is easier said than done.  After calling my dad over to help (who was all too willing), we got the thing in there, but I was super late for book club... anyway.  We got an air conditioner.  And it's amazing.  And I hate to say it, but my dad was right.  :)

We took the baby to her first concert!  We went and saw Alkaline Trio on June 8th, and they were FANTASTIC.  I freakin' love that band.  Probably not as much as Jason, but still.  I have to say though, we were packed in so damn tight in that venue, and of course, it's Portland, so there is no air conditioning.  So it was hot as hades, and then the band was probably the loudest I'd ever heard a band in my entire life.  I thought I was going to pass out!  I had to leave every little while to get a breath of fresh air, it was so intense!  But they ended with probably my favorite Alkaline Trio song, "Radio", which is ironically probably the closest thing to a 'song' Jason and I have-- and it's about a guy hoping his ex-girlfriend will take the radio into the bathroom and electrocute herself.  What can I say, Jason and I just love each other.  :) 

We've gone camping, celebrated several birthdays at Antoinette's house with cake and ice cream and ridiculous-ness.  I'm still climbing, though I have definitely scaled it back a notch, since gaining a bunch of weight doesn't really make you climb harder, actually.  Bryan and Suzanne have moved closer to us, which is AWESOME.  Now they are only about 12 blocks away, which is much more convenient for games of Catan and having dinner.  I think this arrangement will work out just fine.  :)

Nicky got accepted to grad school!  All her hard work is starting to pay off!  She was really excited.  Well, excited, and then a little depressed at the thought of all the homework in her future, but mostly excited.  We went out to dinner to celebrate, had some twin time, which is excellent.  She's a total badass.  The math she has to take makes me want to vomit-- there's no way man.  But she is ridiculously motivated and psyched, which is amazing.  So she's killing it, as if there was ever any doubt. 

My job is awesome, although I did have to stop biking to work, which is sad. It just got really uncomfortable to be all hunched over with that package of baby getting squished up by my knees every day.  That, and it's also really uncomfortable to get out of breath after just about 5 minutes biking, and then having to huff and puff all the way home.  So now I'm busing to work, which is it's own adventure.  I'm working on being able to read on the bus-- trying to conquer the motion sickness.  And people watching.  Which is pretty dang quality.  And work helps with the purchase of a bus pass, which is pretty sweet, because it opens up quite a bit in the downtown area that I can get to quickly while on a lunch break.  Dangerous.  There is a lot of shopping down here.  And a giant library.  I'm easily distracted.

Anyway.  So as you can see, I have a good reason for it taking so long to write this dang post!  But, I have more.  Rather than run on into an even more insanely long post, I'm ending it here.  But I promise I'll be back shortly with more!