kate the great.

This is slightly random, but is anyone else following all stories about the William & Kate & the royal baby?  How could you not?  They’re everywhere.  That kid is already way more popular than Regina George.  Coincidentally, his name is also George.

But in case you’ve been living under a rock, I can fill you in real quick.  William & Kate had a kid.   The end.

If you really need more details, royal baby George was born on Monday and weighed in at a little over 8 pounds.  That’s approximately 12 US dollars.

Moving on.  You know what I love about Kate?  She has the ability to be pretty much perfect, but not in a way that makes me want to pull out my own hair.  Or her hair.  (I would like to touch her hair though, it looks so magical).  But she just seems like a genuinely amazing person.  Don’t you think?

Anyway, what brought on this post is when I saw the pictures of William & Kate leaving the hospital with their new little one, and I was so… happy… when I saw what Kate was wearing.  Stay with me.  These days women (mostly celebrities) pop out a child and 10 seconds later are back to wearing bikinis.  It’s so unrealistic.  Because from what I’ve heard, baby weight can be a beeotch.  And that belly sticks around for a while.  It’s sad to me that there is the expectation for women to snap back into shape immediately after birthing an actual human.  So, back to Kate.  She’s obviously a pretty slim lady but I was just so impressed that she wore a dress that accentuated her post-baby belly.  It was just natural.  She didn’t try hide it or cover it up, she was just there, doing her thing, and she looked great.  See for yourself:

Am I right?  Nice work Kate.  Way to be even more awesomer than usual.  Cheerio!

 

 

 

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more visitors visiting.

So as I mentioned yesterday, visitors.  They keep happening.  Last Thursday, we said goodbye to Casey’s family at approximately 9am.  By 1:45pm, I was meeting my dad and stepmom at the airport for their long weekend visit.  Despite the fact that we hadn’t had time between the waves of company to change the sheets on the beds, and we had no clean towels for showers (my dad actually had to use two tiny hand towels the first day… which couldn’t have been fun) and we were in serious need of another trip the grocery store, we were so pumped to have them here.  It’s pretty much guaranteed that any time Papa Kenny comes to visit, we’ll have a pretty kick-ace time.  He is one of the best vacationers I know – and by that I mean that he truly relaxes, let’s loose and is up for pretty much any adventure.  I love it.  When he visits, it’s kind of like I’m on vacation too.  And it’s all about me, really.

It was also stepmama Denise’s first visit to Portlandia so it was fun to show her the sights and introduce her to this weird place we like to call home.

I played hooky from work on Friday and we drove to Multnomah Falls & Hood River for the day.  It was my one-millionth time to the Falls but my first time to Hood River, and it ended up being one of my very favorite days.

[ Multnomah Falls.  I’ve been there so many times and It always fails at disappointing me.  Just plain old sucks at it. ]

Hood River is about an hour outside of Portland and it’s just the very cutest town on the Columbia River… full of wineries, a few breweries and is home to Tofurkey.  What more could a wine-swilling pescatarian ask for?  In fact, I’ve since informed Casey that we’re moving there.  It was that good.

On Saturday we made our way out to the coast.  The whole day was full of eating, as these things usually go. We stopped for Blue Star Donuts on our way out of town.  I’m just going to say it… they are so much better than Voodoo Donuts.  I know, I know.  That’s very unpatriotic of me, but you know what?  My belly don’t lie.  Sort of like Shakira’s hips.

THEN we stopped at Blue Heron cheese company in Tillamook.  Because of cheese.

[ I got to feed this guy.  He wasn’t allowed cheese though.  Can you imagine? It’s pretty much not even worth eating, if you ask me. ]

And finally we parked it at Rockaway Beach for a while.  We did a bit o’ napping on the sand…

 [ Did you know that parrotfish eat rocks and poop sand?  It’s true.  Don’t say I never taught you anything. ]

…and then, MOAR EATING.

I refuse to ever get sick of the Old Oregon Smokehouse.  I think that was our fifth visit there, and every time it’s stupid good… but this time they had a special: crab & cheese fondue served in a sourdough breadbowl, which thinking back on is making me salivate onto my keyboard.  I’d eat that stuff slathered on an old sock.

Saturday night was spent drinking whiskey and talking about how cool Portland is.  There may have also been some hammock swings involved (no pictures required).

Thanks for the fun times Papa Ken and Denise!  Please come back soon.  We’ll have semi-dirty sheets and plenty of hand towels upon your arrival.  And per usual, Chicago’s greatest hits on vinyl.  And whiskey duh.

the thompson’s take over portland.

Per usual, summer is fa-lying by.  The way it does.  I’m having minor heart-palpitations when I think about the fact that next week is August and I still have so many summer things to do.  Camping??  Last year by this time we’d gone thrice times!  Movies in the park?  I have yet to get butt-numb while watching Ratatouille and drinking 3 buck chuck in a seedy park.  And hikes?  Dear lord, I don’t think we’ve gone on a decent one in months!  So much to do, so little time.

One thing that’s different about this summer than last is the amount of visitors we’re getting.  HOO.RAY.  Nothing makes me happier than having a house full of people to show around our neighborhood and city.  Apparently it makes a difference when we have more than one bedroom (and bathroom, ahem) to welcome people to, because it’s like people are coming out of the woodwork to visit.  And we’re loving it like crazy.

Last week we hosted Casey’s family (mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, two nieces) for 5 days.  They flew into Seattle and we all met up in Seaside on Saturday afternoon… which was a quick and beautiful hour-long drive for us… for them it was a morning full of flights, another 3.5 hour drive from Seattle to Seaside, 1 speeding ticket and two tired little ladies to deal with.  We eased their pain by tapping the rockies in our hotel parking lot as soon as they got there.  Nothing but class, us Thompsons.

But Seaside was amazing: beaches + seafood + salt water taffy + biking around town in a surrey with two little ones and one squirrely little dog…  It’s the stuff memories are made of.

They spent the rest of their visit be-bopping around Portland with Casey as their tour guide.  Because of this silly little thing called work, I had to miss allllll the daytime fun, including a visit to the zoo, the rose garden, Disneyland for Dogs, Multnomah Falls, a hike, the Children’s museum and most importantly… Big Ass Sandwiches.  It was pure torture.  But I know they had fun without me, somehow ;)  I could tell by how pooped they were each night.  Luckily I got to be a party of the nightly happy hour and subsequent dinner eat-athons we seemed to have every evening.  I gotta say, that’s a top five perk of having visitors.  Free rein to eat and drink whatever .. because hey, we gotta show them a good time.  Right?  Yup.

And now, cue the peek-cheers!

[ salt water taffy.  i think i ate 3 chins worth ]

[ view from the back of the surrey.  i think my hands are still shaking… those seats were only like this wide.  and we had to deal with gus-monster who would just not sit still. ]

[ these little cuties love to giggle.  and cry.  but mostly giggle. ]

[ gus was obsessed with mark’s pocket.  something about a cheese stick wrapper…. ]

[ photo courtesy of mama nance and papa earl! ]

Thanks for the fun times family – we love you!  Gus says hey and he’s still looking for that cheese stick…

xo
The Portland Thompsons

bed shopping. and hopping.

Casey and I have been slooooooowly furnishing our house since we moved in a few months ago.  Coming from a background of small apartments + moving to everywhere all the time, we have a hodge-podge of next to nothing when it comes to furniture.  A nightstand from high school that has stains on it from sticking my gum to it, an old chair from the in-laws that has no springs and is far too uncomfortable for any human to sit on (but Gus loves it), a couch we bought for $75 from my old orthodontist boss… we are basically the Brad & Angelina of adopting furniture.  Give us furniture and we will show it the world!   Yah so, our house is still pretty echo-y.  Lots to buy.  Lots. to. buy.

But last week we made a total big kid furniture purchase.  Drumroll please….. a king-sized bed!  :: pause to do the carlton dance ::

You’d think that lay-testing (??) beds would be a dream job, but it was actually kind of a lot of work and made me very tired.  Go figure.  Wouldn’t life be grand if you could just go to a bed store and lay down and mattreses would swap out underneath you?  Instead of bed-hopping and forgetting if this one was more comfortable than that one but I forgot what that one felt like and that other one is cheaper but is it just as comfortable.. yadda yadda yadda.  Sigh… middle-class problems.  (speaking of which, have you seen this?  It’s amazing.)

We somehow made it through the process though… and after multiple bed store trips and two point five hours at a Sleep Country with our new best friend, salesman Jim, we found our new Sealy.  And you guys?  It’s so pretty.  It’s like we’re staying at the Ritz every night (that’s just a guess, the closest I’ve ever gotten to a Ritz is a cracker).  And by every night, I mean Friday night.  Because that’s the only night we’ve slept in it so far.  Casey’s family is visiting this week (post on that coming soon!) and we, being the amazing awesome kids that we are, gave up our beautiful new Ritz bed to Casey’s parents.  It’s definitely high-time that our parents stop sleeping on our air mattress.  They’ve been troopers for far too long.  I don’t know if it’s harder for us to give up our bed or harder for them to accept it but either way, we’re so happy to do it because we’ll have plenty of chances to faceplant into that bad boy over the next hundred years.  That’s how long it’ll take to pay it off, anyways.

So now we need a name for our new bed.  Cuz that’s what you do when you’re an adult and buy nice furniture, you name it.  Maybe “The Ritz”?  For obvious reasons.  Or “Your Mom”?  Because that joke never gets old.  Or probably just “The Place I Watch a Lot of Pretty Little Liars”.  Because.

today’s walk.

Lately I’ve been taking Gus for long walks every morning.  That’s the beauty of working at a place where 9:30 is considered the official start of the work day.  I actually get to start my day before I start my day.  I’m usually up around 7, I make myself some coffee to go, throw my rat’s nest hair into a bun and head out for a walk around the neighborhood with the pup.  Gus is the worst walker, which means that I spend most of the time being yanked and pulled all over the street, but it’s still a pretty stellar way to start the day (unless of course I forget to put a bra on and then it’s just painful).

This morning was kind of weird for us though… about two minutes into our walk, Gus pounced on and then started savagely eating what I can only assume was a human bone that he found in the street.  It was so big, there’s no way it came from a bucket of KFC… nope.  It was definitely a human femur.  Creepy and gross because I had to try and pry it out of his mouth.  Nothing like a little carcass to start your day.  And during our tug o’ war, he must have gotten some of it lodged in his throat because he coughed/threw up a little on my foot.  Which is disgusting obviously, but even worse when you have nothing to clean it up with.  So I just rinsed it off with my coffee.  

No big deal, dog barf is part of the job.  Onward!

A few minutes later, we stumbled across this big old house that is clearly under renovation.  It was so weird though because there were approximately 10 people working on the porch at one time.  At first I thought that they were all going to break out into song/choreographed dance because it was seriously the stage for a working-class musical.  But THEN I looked up and saw an old lady sitting and staring out of one of the second floor windows.  Maybe I’ve been watching too much Pretty Little Liars lately (actually, that’s not a maybe.  i HAVE been watching too much of it.  it’s embarrassing.  please help.) but now I’m fairly certain all those workers were there to clean up a crime that the old lady was trying to cover up.  It was ca-reepy.  She was staring RIGHT at me.  So what’s a girl to do?  Take a picture of course!

[ she’s hard to see but she’s there.  oh yes, she’s there. ]

Luckily Gus yanked us the other way before we were murdered, so that’s cool.  Again, onward!

Ok, so I must have some kind of naked lady karma because AGAIN!  We were minding our own business, walking down the sidewalk and just as we were passing this one house, someone opened their door.  And there they stood, a fully clothed dude and fully nude lady, making out.   Her (ahem) backside was facing us so Gus and I got a nice clear shot of her toosh.  Seriously, WHO makes out with someone in front of their wide-open front door NAKED?  What is happening.  I applaud her creative way to send her husband off to work – but c’mon.   I’m a stranger and I saw her butt!  So, what’s a girl to do?  Take a picture of course!

…..

Get your head out of the gutter, I did not take a picture of that.

You know, just your typical walk around the neighborhood.  The one good thing that happened though is that we ended up at this really pretty overlook.  In a neighborhood called Overlook.   So we… looked over.  It was purty.  It made all the vomit, crime scenes and buttcracks worth it.

Oh but then while I was getting ready for work I found a cluster of gray hairs on my head… like 7 of them all in a 1-inch radius.  That has nothing to do with the dog walk but it was f*cking traumatic, to say the least.  If this is happening in my twenties, I can’t imagine what’s going to happen in my thirties.  I’m going to look like George Clooney by the time I’m 38.  Which actually makes sense since I have this uncanny ability to attract naked ladies.  HEYO!

** Sidenote.  I do not discriminate against naked men.  In fact, Casey and I saw a man’s business the other day when he decided to pee right next to us on the sidewalk of a very busy street.

And on that note, Portland is awesome!  Everyone come visit!  Bring your kids!