Late Start: November 2011

Bailey over at her great blog (which I recently discovered), Lost and Found

has started a great link-up with Sunday Sayings.

According to Bailey Sunday Sayings are things you find on the internet that "Makes you happy. Makes you cry. Or makes you laugh" I really love this idea and have decided to join her in this!

So here is my first Sunday Saying:

Via this Tumblr

I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I have been since I was 13. I remember a librarian came from my town's public library to talk to my 8th grade English class about the awesomeness that is summer reading. Since I was (and still am) a huge book work I hung onto her every word and felt that I was the only person in the class who cared. She started to talk about this book. This book they only has two copies from Canada that another librarian brought in circulation because it wasn't out yet in the US.

And it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

The librarian giving the talk had a sign up sheet to get on the waiting list for the book, and I was the first (and possibly only person) to get on it from my class. I waited for months to get my chance to read it.

Harry Potter came at a very lonely point in my life. I didn't have a lot of friends and I was bullied a lot. So it was an escape for me and Harry, Ron, and Hermione became the friends that I really didn't have over the summer. I cannot thank J.K. Rowling enough for having the inspiration to write these novels.

To this day Harry, Ron, and Hermione are some of the best friends I have ever had.

And I cannot wait to introduce them to my future children.

So.

Thank you, Harry.

October 25th was Chris' 26th birthday. Because I love birthdays I made it a big deal.

Many a pictures ahead!

We started the birthday week off with a surprise visit from his best friend, Andy. They've been friends since middle school, in Hawaii. After graduating from college in California Andy moved up to PDX

we only live an hour and a half away so he tries to come and visit often. Chris was super surprised when Andy went into his work on campus to surprise him. That evening we went to dinner at Hop Valley Brewery. Our friend Melissa joined us.

Soon Melissa, soon.

We are very guilty of taking pictures like this all the time.

We ordered their sampler of beers, I took more pictures of these tiny glasses than anything else. The Hefeweizen
(the one with the lemon) was my favorite. But Hefeweizens tend to be my favorite beers.

I think this picture speaks volumes about us.

I had been to Hop Valley before and really enjoyed it, their happy hour is killer, but I was a little let down for this visit. Everything we ordered that was fried (onion rings, fish and chips, fries) just sorta all tasted the same from the deep frier. But they have these smoke mozzarella sticks that are a-may-zing.

The biggest part of Chris' birthday he didn't even know about. I decided around August that I wanted to throw him a surprise party, with a theme. I settled on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers because he loved them when he was little and...Why not? So I asked guests to wear the color of their favorite Ranger, some people wore the same color head to toe or just a shirt. But it was so much fun! Chris had no idea, because going over to our friend Mychal's house for 'pizza, video games, and beer' is pretty normal.

Nathan blew up ALL the ballons.

Elisa got conned into hanging up everything because she's tall. Story of her life.

Ballons everywhere! A Power Rangers streaming on NetFlix. What more could an almost 26 year old guy ask for?

Nell, in the orange, is from New Zealand. They didn't have Power Rangers there so wasn't sure what color to wear. There is no Orange Ranger. We let her stay though.

I went as the Red Ranger due to the fact that I couldn't find a ridiculous pink party dress at Ross.

Glow stick dance time!

We played dubstep, pop music mashups, and LMFAO all night. So loudly a very nice police officer came to the house told us to turn it down.

Chris' vanilla cake with Nutella cream cheese frosting, adorned with the Power Ranger mecha, from a Happy Meal I bought for Chris back in September. I baked it the night before at my friend Devin's apartment. HRD came to the party too.

Most awesome picture form the evening. Elisa disapproving of whatever Nathan is doing.

I didn't take any pictures of the surprise itself, but I did do a video, or rather Nell did. It's really funny, to Chris and I at least. The best part? After singing him a very surprising happy birthday Mychal said "Gotcha!" Then you can hear Elisa, yell off camera, "Get this man a drink!" And we did. All in all it was great party and a huge surprise for Chris. Much merryment was had and made for all who attend. The was also sprinkles of roomie drama and the token friend with the token crappy partner everyone hates. Other than that it was a proper college party with red cups, beer pong, shots, and at least one person who drank too much. Chris had a great time, and that's what matters.

The morning, or rather the afternoon, after the party we got an epic breakfast at The Glenwood, a Eugene restaurant legend.

October 25th was the real day! Chris wanted to do something simple so we went to Toshi's Ramen and got dinner, and just enjoyed each other's company. We rarely get to spend time-time together, although we live together, sometimes we just get busy and sorta forget about us.