Things Jordan's Listening to Thursday! (Or something like that)

Hi all,

It's been basically six months since we moved to Portland! So weird--it really doesn't seem like that long. Well, I didn't really know what to blog about (I'm working on a wedding dress post, and I'm heading up to Seattle next weekend, so those posts will be coming soon), so I asked Jordan what the top five songs are that he's been listening to since we moved here.

Here's what he said:

1. "Oh Sherry" -- Steve Perry
Jordan: I think that Steve Perry is my absolute favorite vocalist of all time. This song is super catchy! Sometimes I wish Claire's name was Sherry so I could sing it to her... :)

2. "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" -- Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
Jordan: Great piano riff, good harmonies... Ever since I went to Vegas and saw the show in November, I've been obsessed!

3. "Queen of California" -- John Mayer
Jordan: A great, chill song with good harmonies, too--It reminds me of early morning driving up to Portland through southern Utah in August.

4. "Breathless" -- The Corrs
Jordan: Female vocalists were better in the 90s...

5. "Don't Dream It's Over" -- Crowded House
Jordan: This is mostly nostalgic for me--it takes me back to Idaho, mint fields, sunsets... And I don't want the 90s to be over. :)

What'd you think of Jordan's dancing? He's gonna kill me for putting it on here... ;)

-Claire

Christmastime in Portland

In a perfect world, this post would have been up at the beginning of January, but everyone knows now how prompt I've been with posting on the blog.

Jordan and I did our Christmas thang before I flew to Texas for the holidays. A blog post on wedding dress shopping later! We didn't really make it a big deal--I didn't even wrap Jordan's solitary present. (Although he did get a fancy wedding band a few weeks later!)

I had bought us tickets to see the Oregon Ballet Theater's production of the Nutcracker several weeks before, and if you know me at all, you know how much I LOVE the Nutcracker around Christmastime. My mom took me when I was younger several times, and it's one of my favorite holiday memories growing up.

Anyway, I wanted to take Jordan so he could experience the magic of the ballet with me (and it's lame to go by yourself to the Nutcracker). That morning, we made blueberry muffins and listened to Christmas records that I had been buying at thrift stores in preparation.

We had so much fun, and I hope you enjoy the pictures! :)

The Long-Awaited Engagement Post, Part 1

Okay, okay, this is a long time coming, I know... Life has just been so busy the last month! Who knew that the second you get engaged is the second you start planning your wedding? Not me, anyway. Add that on top of starting graduate school, working two jobs, and trying to figure out life in Portland and you find that the blogging never gets done.

Oh gosh, I don't even know where to start--there's so much to tell! And I specifically asked Jordan not to put any details about the engagement on Facebook so that I could tell the whole story here on the blog instead. :)

I guess the best place to start is the ring. Jordan and I had been looking on and off since around my birthday in July. I found one online that I loved, and none of the ones I saw in person really compared to this beautiful vintage ring that I had found. But neither Jordan nor I was particularly thrilled with ordering something so special like an engagement ring through a computer without seeing it first; as I tried on rings, I realized that the ones that I thought I would really like didn't look as good on my hand as I thought. So after deciding that the online ring was too expensive and the risk was too great, we started looking at other places.

The Saturday before we got engaged (so September 15th), Jordan bought us tickets to a Portland Timbers soccer game. It was SO much fun--it actually reminded me a lot of seeing Nottingham Forest play when I studied abroad in Oxford. They have all of their own club's chants and cheers, and everyone was wearing green and white. The Timbers were down 0-1 and it was near the 80th minute when we decided to leave to beat the crowd. Literally the second we stepped out of the stadium the Timbers scored a goal and the stadium just exploded. Of course.

Anyway, there was a jewelry store close to the stadium that Jordan wanted to look at, so we walked a couple of blocks down and talked to someone there. There were a couple of rings that I liked a lot, but they were pretty expensive. Mostly, Jordan wanted to ask if they could custom design a ring that looked similar to the vintage ring that I had seen online. We probably spent a good 45 minutes in there, looking at all sorts of different styles and cuts and bands... And even though I liked a few of the rings and we were planning to come back the next weekend, I didn't feel convinced that I had found "the one" just yet.

As we left the store, I started telling Jordan about that I felt a little discouraged after seeing all of the rings over the last few months. I couldn't figure out if I didn't love any of the rings because I truly didn't like them, or if I was waiting for some magical feeling that might not even exist. Maybe I had been watching too many romantic comedies and I just needed to pick one that I thought was pretty.

There was one more store that I really wanted to go to that I had read reviews about online. It was a little vintage jewelry store called Gilt on NW 23rd, which is one of my favorite parts of Portland. I didn't have extremely high hopes for the place--my mom and I do a lot of antique shopping, and when most places say they have vintage jewelry, they usually have one or two diamond rings and the rest are costume.

This is Gilt--it doesn't look like a store, but it's so amazing on the inside!

Well, we walked into the store, and my heart started beating so fast. There was an entire glass counter FULL of beautiful, one-of-a-kind diamond rings. As soon as I saw them, I knew we were going to find my ring there. We started talking to one of the women who worked there, and I just felt like I was in a dream. The first ring I tried on looked very similar to the one that I loved online, and it was so beautiful when I put it on. I was so excited... until I looked at the price--I think it was around $11,000. Needless to say, I took it off and handed it straight back to her!

Jordan and I both started to get worried; what if all of the rings were that expensive? I think the woman could tell what we were thinking, because she asked Jordan what his budget was. He told her, and she smiled and said they had a lot of rings at or under that price. So she started pulling several out at a time, and I loved them all. They were all so unique and different that it was hard to compare and decide which ones I liked the best. At first, I was just looking at white gold and platinum rings, since yellow gold seemed a little too old-fashioned for me.

But then she pulled out a little cluster ring with seven diamonds set in platinum with a gold band, and I literally gasped. It was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. It had a thin band (one of the things I really wanted), and it was just so striking and sparkly without looking gaudy. I put it on my finger and I absolutely knew it was the one. I couldn't stop smiling or looking at it in the mirror. It was such a strange feeling--I had no idea that I would have instantly felt that strongly about a ring. But oh my goodness, it was so perfect. And the thing that really sold me was that Jordan liked it the best out of all of them as well. So I looked at him and said, "This is it. This is the one I want!"

But now we were kind of in an awkward situation, because the woman informed us that they didn't put rings on hold--you had to pay for it all at once. Although the ring was under Jordan's budget (yay!), it was still a lot of money to pay at one time. And of course Jordan didn't want to talk to her about it while I was standing right there, so I left and took a walk and called my parents. When Jordan caught up with me a little later, I was dying to ask him a million questions, but I didn't. I'm kind of a surprise-ruiner, and this was one surprise that I didn't want to spoil!

As we were driving home, I told him that I really hoped that it worked out, because I didn't want anyone else to buy it. Little did I know that Jordan had bought the ring just then and it was in his pocket! So sneaky.

Here it is!! Let me know what you think in the comments. :)

See the band? It's a little blurry, but it's a really pretty double band that's still really thin.

The ring was made in the early 1900s. I wish I knew all the history behind it!

This was right after we got engaged. :)

Okay, so this was a lot of reading, so I figured I would split this into two different parts. So stay tuned for part 2 of my engagement post and I'll fill you in on all of the details about the engagement!! :)


-Claire

Claire's Apartment Tour

Okay, so it might not be big enough to qualify as a tour, but that's alright. :)

I hope you like it--let me know what you think, or if you have any other ideas to make it look like home. Jordan and my parents helped me move things in and unpack, and I was grateful for their help. I'd still be unpacking without them! And a huge, huge thank you to everyone who has moved all of my junk around the country--it went from Abilene to Lubbock, Lubbock to Boise, Boise to Portland, and Portland to my apartment.

 I'm also indebted to Jordan's cousin Kelsey--she ensured that I wouldn't be homeless when I got here and sweetly offered to let me stay in her condo for a while. Thanks again, Kelsey!!

 

 

(The best part, for sure.)

Sorry this took so long to upload! Hopefully you could get a little sense of where I live. :)

Jordan and I are heading to the coast on Saturday! I haven't been yet, so I'm really excited. I'll make sure I write a post about that when we get back.

-Claire

Claire's First Week in Portland

Okay, let me say this--the drive from Texas to Oregon is LONG. Outrageously long. I am so so thankful that my wonderful parents were able to come with me for the drive! There's no way I could have driven for three days and then tried to unpack all of my stuff into my new apartment without them.

We took my parents to the famous Voodoo Donut in downtown Portland, and I got to take them to see my new school campus, Portland State! I couldn't give them much of a tour, since I don't really know my way around yet, but they at least got to see what it looked like. :)

The weather has been SO perfect the entire time I've been here, which has been awesome. My dad got to ride a bike trail, and we got to spend a lot of time walking around downtown and over by Concordia University on Alberta Street. It just started cooling down today, so maybe I can break out my sweaters and boots that have been packed away for months and months! In Texas, I still wouldn't even be able to wear any of them for another month at least.

One thing I already love about Portland? Delicious food. I haven't eaten one thing I haven't liked yet! There are Thai places everywhere (I still miss Ann's Thai in Abilene, though), and apparently they have a lot of food carts and things on PSU's campus during the school year. I'm so excited to go to more hole-in-the-wall places; restaurants here are really big on serving food that's been grown locally, which is great.

I should have taken more pictures, but most of the time I just didn't think to bring my camera. (I'll make sure I bring it in the future!)

I can't believe I've already been here a week--it doesn't seem like that long. I think it still feels like I'm visiting Portland, not like I actually live here. Maybe once class starts in a couple of weeks and I get into a routine, it'll start to sink in that I live in Oregon now! Weird.

-Claire

We're here, we're here!

Hello! Welcome to Claire and Jordan's blog about our new lives in Portland, Oregon. :)

We made this blog in the hopes that we could keep our friends and family filled in on all of our adventures. I've never lived anywhere other than Texas before, so everything here in Oregon is brand new. Jordan's moved quite a bit more than me, but it's been a while since he was back in the Northwest.

We're going to try and take as many pictures as we can as we do fun things around Portland, so hopefully you'll find it interesting and want to read it and say hello. :)

Stay tuned for a blog post about my first week in Oregon!

-Claire