I survived 20,000 penises with my nephew.....

Crazy, true story. Saturday night I was at Colin's girlfriend's grad party. Colin's mom was leaving and I wasn't ready to go yet, so I offered to give Colin a ride home, so he could spend some more time with Keira.

We're getting ready to leave and Derek texted, letting me know the naked bike ride was going on. I didn't really give it much thought, I'd read about the ride and knew it was going on, but I didn't think to ask where the ride was going to be, I figured it would be downtown, no where near where I was going.

Boy was I wrong!

We left Keira's house around 10 and started heading home. There was no traffic and we were making good time. As we were coming over the bridge, I noticed lots of police lights flashing and then I saw a bunch of naked bike riders right off the exit I wanted to take to get Colin home. No problem, I'll take the next exit, it's a little out of my way, but that should get us around of all the riders.

I start teasing Colin and making jokes about the naked riders. It was really funny when they were far away and you couldn't see that much of them. Of course, Colin pointed out that he was 18 now and could be one of them, that took the fun out of it for me, he'll always be my little nephew!

We take the next exit and start going west, but wow, more police cars blocking the way I want to go. OK, no problem, we'll just turn around and go east a little further up to the next main street. Colin and I both agree, this is a good plan.

We get to the next main street and it was smooth sailing all the way to Colin's street, where I need to turn right. Up ahead, I can see that the street I'm on is blocked several blocks south, thankfully, we were turning right, I thought we were in the clear, just 20 blocks to go.

Yeah, not so much.

Four blocks down, we were blocked. There was a cop car blocking the whole street. Damn, what now, this is the street we need, Colin's house is just a 5min drive from where we were. We tried to come up with another strategy and Colin decides to go ask the cop if he can tell us the best way around.

About 30 seconds after Colin gets out of the car, I see lots of lights coming up the street towards us and I realize we are about to be right in the middle of the naked bike ride. OH MY GOD, what have I done! Yes, I realize my nephew is not a little kid, he just turned 18, he's an adult, he could be riding his own bike in the naked bike ride if he wanted, but I was mortified none the less. I had driven him right in to the middle of thousands of naked people!!!

What was I to do? Colin gets back to the car and the riders are upon us, about 3 car lengths away, riding by us in all their naked glory. The cop said that we either had to wait it out or the only way to get him home was to take side streets around the riders. Well, I couldn't just sit there and watch the nakedness with my little nephew in the car, so we tried to find another way around.

We drove around another 10min, getting blocked at every turn and finally decided we'd just have to wait it out. I got us to a main intersection that had a huge line of cars and parked and waited.

At this point, Colin and I couldn't stop laughing. I mean seriously, we're less than 5min from his house and can't get there, because of thousands of naked bike riders. Colin calls his mom to let her know what's going on, I call Derek to let him know and of course, everyone is very amused by our predicament.

Then Colin decides to call Keira and let her know what's going on. She doesn't answer, so he has to leave a message. He decides to leave a cryptic message, something about 20,000 penises and then to me he says, "We need to make shirts. My shirt's going to say, I survived 20,000 penises with my Aunt Jen." Then I say, "OK, I'll make one that says, I survived 20, 000 penises with my nephew."

Colin's mom calls to check in and see where we're at, and he tell's her his idea about the shirts and she says "and twice as many boobs". And there's the back of our shirts.

It took about 20min for all the riders to go by and once the intersection was clear, I had Colin safely home in under 5 minutes.

What a crazy drive home. If I would have just taken the first exit, we would have been able to get by it all and I never would have been stuck watching the thousands of naked bike riders with my nephew.

Let me tell ya, this whole experience for me, gives whole new meaning to the phrase: "Keep Portland Weird" !

Oh how time flies...

Today, my newphew is graduating from high school. Seems like just yesterday, he was a baby and now he's all grown up.

Watching Colin grow up has been one of the highlights of my life. I have so many wonderful memories. Him playing with our boxer, Bud, they were the best of friends. When he was discovering the joys of food and the different flavor combinations he'd come up with by adding everything to his cup of milk and then trying to get someone else to drink it. Story time, he used to drive me crazy with his "Tell me a story" rant that wouldn't let up, no matter how many stories you told. Going on our many trips to Disneyland (watch out for the prickly pear!). My favorite memory, when he learned he could pee outside, he didn't want to go anywhere else!

I am so proud of Colin and all his accomplishments. His amazing grades, he's graduating with more than a 4.0 GPA. His volunteer work, he's done many tours as an Outdoor school counselor, and he's also been a volunteer at OMSI for several years. The thing I'm most proud of is what a great kid he's turned out to be.

Colin's future is so bright and I am so fortunate that I get to be part of his life  journey to see where it takes him.

I love you, Colin. You've made me so proud. Keep it up! I can't wait to see what you do next!

My 12 mile challenge

Last week, Derek, my friend Meredith and I hiked the fort to sea trail. It's 12 miles round trip.

I wasn't sure I could do it, I've never hiked that far in one day. I had a couple months to get ready, but I didn't do much as I could or should have. I just didn't know what to expect.

I did the obvious things to get ready. I bought a back pack, a good pair of walking/hiking shoes, thick socks, a bladder for my pack, I took some long walks, wore my new shoes every day, but I should have done more.

All in all, I did really well on the hike. At the half way point, I had an out, I could have called Meredith's husband to come get me, but I didn't. It was a huge accomplishment for me to walk the 6 miles, I wanted to go even bigger and do the whole 12.

It was hard and my shoes killed my feet (the thing I should have done was get those good and broken in before I hiked that far, my blisters had blisters!), but even as hard as it was and as tired and sore as I was, it was one of the most awesome things I've ever done.

I am excited and very much looking forward to future hikes. First things first, I need to get my shoes broken in, plus I need to use the treadmill at the gym to strengthen my legs and get them more in shape for hills. If it was flat, I could probably have walked 20 miles, it's the hills that killed me.

I have to say a HUGE thank you to Derek and Mer, I don't think I could have done it without them. They were so supportive and stuck by me. I was hurting and probably not very much fun to be around, but they helped pull me through.

Doggie Dash

Saturday was the 24th Annual Doggie Dash. It's a race/walk to raise money for the Oregon Humane Society. The company I work for was sponsoring and had free entries, so I decided to do the 2.5 mile bridge to bridge walk.

Both mom and Derek agreed to join me, along with mom's dog, Pepper. We would have taken my dog, Rikki, but her shots aren't up to date, so she had to stay home. Next year, she'll get to go for sure.

I was a little worried how the weather would be. The last couple weeks the weather has gone from sunny one day to pouring down rain the next. Friday was beautiful, so I figured Saturday it would be pouring, but no, it was perfect. Partly cloudy, no rain, no wind. We couldn't have asked for better weather for our walk.

We got to the waterfront, got registered and I was overwhelmed by all the dogs. They came in every shape, size and color, from the tiniest tea cup chihuahua to the biggest Irish wolfhound. It was the coolest thing!

Everyone was so nice and friendly and dogs were all getting along for the most part. It was weird how little barking there was. You'd think with that many people/dogs in one place it would be really loud, but wasn't any different than any other festival on the waterfront.

We started our walk between SW Stark and Pine and went up and over the Hawthorne Bridge, along the Eastbank Esplanade, across the Steel Bridge and then back to the waterfront. It was really fun walking across the bridges, the views were great. 2.5 miles on concrete is a rough walk, but I did better than I thought I would. I was breaking in my new walking shoes and my feet and legs felt pretty good afterwards.

All in all, it was a really awesome day and such a great, fun experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

The Host

I have a new favortite book, The Host by Stephanie Meyer. She wrote the Twilight series, which I love, but this book is even better. It's a great love story with some sci-fi thrown in. It's a really cool take on an invasion of the body snatchers story.

I started reading the book and I couldn't put it down. It's over 600 pages and I had it read in less than 4 days.

If you're looking for a good book, read The Host, I highly recommend this book!!!

Over a month in to spring and no sun

Here it is, May 11th and it's another day of rain and I'm SOOOO tired of it! I want and need sunshine! I want at least a week of consecutive sunny days to wash away the gray for good!

I love living in Oregon, can't imagine living anywhere else, but when spring arrives and it doesn't bring the sun, just more rain, I feel robbed! All I want is to be outside. Every time there's a sunny day, I make sure I spend as much time outside as I can, because seems like each sunny day is followed by rain, rain and more rain!

I say Bring it on, rain, you can't last forever! You're not going to keep me inside, either. I am making plans to hike and walk and vacation and if it's all in the rain, so be it. You're not going to keep this native Oregonian inside!

Think positive and let light into your life

When life has you down, think positive, it will get better.

 

When you are in a rough patch and it seems as though nothing but negative is coming your way, think positive, this rough patch won't last forever.

 

When you wake up feeling sick every day, whether it's a headache or stomach ache, that's not right, something is wrong, try thinking positive.

 

I used to be a horribly negative person and I still have my moments, but through therapy and the help of some really amazing friends, I've learned to be a more positive person. Once I started thinking and acting positively, more good things started to happening to me in my life. Once I cut out the people in my life who did nothing but bring me down, I started feeling so much better.

 

There are some people that I love who can be really negative and I want so much for them to be more positive, I think they'd feel so much better about themselves and their life. I know it's not easy. Life can be very difficult.

 

One person in particular, I've had talks with them about being more positive and when they were working at being more positive, you could tell, things really started looking up for them. It made me SO happy to see that!

 

I know it's not easy and it takes a lot more energy to be positive than to be negative, but it is so much more rewarding!

 

You know the old saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

 

See the brighter side of life.

 

SMILE! You are LOVED!