Oops... I did it again!

Remember this post last February? Well unfortunately another pan cover has had the same fate. I guess I need to check the oven more thoroughly before I preheat it... In my defense, it frees up a lot of counter space to keep stuff in the oven. Since the brownies, cupcakes, and cookies stored inside were toast (literally!) I decided to console myself with this chocolate cake recipe. Delicious!

Let it Snow!

It doesn't often snow here, so having the forecast predict that it will snow doesn't mean much. But look what we woke up to this morning! It'll probably melt by tomorrow but it sure is a fun surprise for a day!

OHSU Class Christmas Party

Every year, OHSU has a class Christmas party. It's an ugly sweater themed party, and it's really fun to see what everyone's wearing. We went thrift storing the day before to find sweaters, but they were all out. Lane still wanted to dress up, so this is what he ended up doing:

It's kind of hard to see in the pictures, but besides gluing on Christmas ornaments, he strung battery-operated Christmas lights through the jean jacket. He had a slight mohawk too. Things are never dull with Lane around!

Banana Bread

This past week I cleaned out the freezer and found a TON of frozen bananas that I'd put in there to make banana bread. I buckled down and made some from a recipe on allrecipes. You can find the recipe here. I tried 2 different versions to try to make it healthier. I added plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and added some whole wheat flour. The first loaf I added only whole wheat:

 It tasted ok, but was missing a little bit of flavor.

The second loaf I did half whole wheat and half white flour. Obviously, it turned out a little bit better. This is all that was left of the loaf by the next day. Yes, we ate the whole loaf in 1 night. I'm definitely going to be making this again soon!

Our September

It's a few months past September, but we had such a fun month that I thought I'd tell you about it. Lane was in Texas for my birthday going to this:

here (Cowboy's Stadium with the HUGE HD screen):

And he left me all alone on my birthday week :(. No, it was ok because my uncle flew me out here:

and we did all sorts of fun stuff like eat out:

and go wakeboarding a few times (no that's not me, I wish):

Oh yeah, and do this:

That's right, I got to see Taylor Swift in concert! We were really close to her too. Thanks Uncle Marc for a fabulous birthday week!

I got back to Oregon and on my birthday a few of my best girlfriends came over. We had pizza and chocolate cake and played games (the best of which was watching everyone attempt Just Dance on the Wii). It was a great time and I'm so thankful to all of my friends and family who made my birthday so special!

Ok so it turned into mostly a post about me, but it's my birthday and I'm the only contributor to the blog, so what do you expect?!

Autumn in Portland

Fall is gorgeous in the Northwest! This summer, I finally planted flowers in my backyard (courtesy of my mom, thanks!). They bloomed a little bit, but I figured they would need another year to really blossom. I was pleasantly surprised that they seem to flourish in the freezing cold and lack of sunlight. Today was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day, the epitome of what every day of fall should be. I decided to take advantage and show you some pictures of my flowers! I'm so excited that I've gotten rid of my black thumb (knock on wood...). 

The roses are climbing up the fence in the backyard. They've really taken off since I planted them and have                            probably grown 2 or 3 feet.

  I thought this is what my daisies were destined for

Instead, it looks like they're ready for round 2 of blooming

This is the azalea that Lane got me for Valentine's day. It looks it might bloom again too!

This is some type of low-growing plant to cover the ground. It's definitely doing its job!

The view from my backyard. Aren't the leaves awesome?

Puerto Vallarta

During Lane's summer break, we took a trip down to Puerto Vallarta. We stayed at the same place that we stayed at on our honeymoon. It's probably one of our favorite places to vacation; it's so relaxing, and the beach is almost always empty.

Lane fished every night and usually caught something. We even had fish tacos one night!

There were iguanas everywhere! One was even sitting by me as I was reading on a lounge chair.

The palapa where we sat and read all day. It overlooks the beach and ocean and we saw  whales one day!

A bathroom next to the pool

The apartment above us is where we stayed on our honeymoon and for part of the trip this time. Can you see why we love it here?!