Viva la Roadtrip

So this past weekend myself, Steph and Maria all headed south for some good food and relaxing fun. After two hours in the car and some good laughs we met our food destiny at Viva Vegetarian Food Cart in Eugene.

Oh it was goodness. That is each of us with our Viva vegan cheesesteaks.

After filling up on tasty stuff, including vegan coffee soft serve ice cream, we headed out to tour some of the covered bridges on the Lowell Covered Bridge Loop Tour.

Beautiful!

Between the three of us we got some really nice pictures of the bridges and of each other.

Don't laugh, I love that hat!

Maria, myself & Steph finishing up our beers by the river.

This was the second road trip I'd taken this summer, the first one I will look back on later(with pictures of course). Being a student again not only gives me the opportunity to meet new friends(like Steph) but to have some time off during the summer to enjoy and feel young again!

I have wonderful friends, they always know how to have a good time. We never run out of laughs and that's the best!

I came home to an empty house, as Chris was out of town for the weekend with the guys doing his DJ thing. The rest of the weekend I spent recovering from a slight sunburn and my friday roadtrip of awesome. I am keeping my fingers crossed for at least one more of these great roadtrips before classes start up again in September. I'll keep you posted!

In The Beginning

For years I have been keeping my thoughts online in a blog, however I have come to outgrow that and am now here. I have spent years of time and effort in that blog, and have high hopes for this blog as well.

To begin, my name is Crystal, I was born and raised in Portland Oregon. I spent many years working as a nursing assistant before returning to school, getting my phlebotomy & lab assisting license and discovering my love of scientific research. Currently I am again a student, live in the Portland Metro area with my long term love, my boyfriend Christopher and our two lovely cats Cleopatra & Atreyu.

My mother's native to Seattle, her family is Scottish & Norwegian. My mother's family is very large and extended, we have had huge gatherings my whole life that consist of no less than 30 people and enough home-cooked food to feed the entire Oregon National Guard!

My father was born in Kentucky and still has roots there though he moved around most of his life and has lived all over the country, finally settling in Oregon because as he tells it "there we just so many trees!" My father is in a two and a half year battle with stage IV metastesized colon cancer. His disease and his fight has become a central part of my life and my relationship with both my parents.

I have one younger brother, Mac, who for lack of a better explanation is a recovering Meth addict who lives with my parents on their small farm in Columbia County.

I have a bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles who are regulars in my life, but those are the main characters who are a daily part of my life. I have fabulously loud, crazy, fun and entertaining neighbors who keep me smiling and laughing and mostly from ever being bored. I do not have a plethora of friends, but those I do count are good friends and have stuck by me through many different rough patches in my life.

At some point I will mention all of these people, so here I give them fair warning!

My life has been, as most I am sure, with wonderful parts and not so wonderful parts, thus the title to this blog.

I must thank Steph for turning me on to blogspot, as I was attempting to find a new place to make my internet home and she made it look easy. Probably because she is 10 times more creative than me.