Here is my sweet bear, zonking out on our bed in Portland.


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This weekend, I spent many hours making mini and regular sized chalkboards for the Etsy shop. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I had put painting them off for a bit, but once the power cut out, I knew I had to do things that did not require electricity and this was one of them. I definitely took over the kitchen counter. The majority of these little frames already sold this week and I enjoyed packing up each order. I also sent out the mystery grab bag prize to the winner, Kate Dooley. Congrats again, Kate! She chose the Brooklyn scarf from my shop and I threw in a few other items for her to enjoy as well. It's been a busy week, both at my day job and this job, and I have been enjoying it!

This evening, we went out for some snacks and drinks. For once, I didn't take any photos of my drink or food, but rest assured that it was all tasty. 

Smiley Ryan

Tater, peering

New shoes

My smiley girl.

Can you see the bulldog in her now?

Skeptical Ryan is skeptical.

Let me tell you about these new shoes...we were walking to this place to eat and hang out when all of a sudden, my fancy sandal basically folded in half under itself. It stayed broken and there was no fixing it. Of course this happened right after I had just thought that the sandals were quite comfortable/broken in after buying them last year. Sigh.

We stopped at one of my favorite local clothing stores so that I could continue walking around downtown for the evening. One pair of shoes was too small, another not the right color and another was...manageable. The sales person felt so bad that my sandal broke while I was walking around that she gave me a discount when ringing up the new pair of flats. I was grateful for this unexpected gift and walked the shoes out the door.

Let it be known that while I am not a fan of sequin shoes, I actually don't mind these and they are kind of fun with this flowery print maxi dress from H&M.

With the shoes purchased, we were able to carry on with the rest of our night, enjoying some food and drinks with our Tater Bear.

 We spent a lot of time in the Mission District on our trip. Ryan wanted to check out a photography store and a Brewery while I wanted to look through a thrift shop and checkout some vegan eats (ok, so I wanted to go to the Brewery, too). These first couple of photos are from a mexican food place called Gracias Madre. It is EXCELLENT. I had the open face enchilada and until this point I had never had an open face enchilada. It did not disappoint!
 Another day, we headed to the 21st Amendment Brewery. We had a pack of their beers here in MA and liked them enough that we thought we would try out the brewery while on vacation. Below is Ryan's glass, the Back in Black. He also had wings that he enjoyed. I was able to devour a veggie burger and was quite pleased.
 At some point between Mission visits, my uncles began putting out tiki items around their home.

leis

punchbowl

Puffer fish

They have many tiki items for their home...in fact, we stayed in their Tiki Room during our stay. More photos will be shared soon (also featuring the Tiki Bar). I love flipping through all of these photos...they happily remind me of our vacation and how nice it was not to have to worry about a thing while we were gone. Stay tuned for further updates!

Ah the weekend. We woke up at our usual weekday time today to leave to help a friend move into her new house. After 3.5 sweaty sweaty hours, we had loaded and unloaded everything to her new place. That was actually one of the easiest moves that I have helped with and am so glad. I have no photos, though, so I cannot share the gloriousness of it with you all. Instead, you may gaze upon the hummingbird that I found in Chinatown for my uncles.

P.S. Don't forget to enter my shop giveaway through Pussycat Vintage. Click here to enter! I can't wait to have you win!

Today is Thursday; a rough day of the week. It's past midweek but it's not quite Friday yet. In lieu of this, I will be posting more of my San Francisco Bay Area vacation photos. I am lusting for the weekend, for sure.

View of part of the city from Pier 39.

In Chinatown, having lunch.

In the Mission, eating strawberry salad and imbibing beer.

at the beer place. loved the simplicity.

our bread at Absinthe, my uncles' favorite restaurant.

phil and ryan's oysters at Absinthe.

Jeff has a marvelous aquarium that he has begun. SO impressive.

closer view of fish and corals.

We are helping a friend move this weekend and other than that, I hope to enjoy cooler weather. Tomorrow will be our third day in the 90s this week. I don't think I can handle much more of it! Hot weather and I are not friends. I much prefer Fall, where I can layer up and snuggle in 40 and 50 degree weather. Summer here is definitely a time where I miss living in Alaska. Oh well. Overall, I am much happier that we moved here when we did. We were able to adopt our dog, Tater Tot, and see a lot more cities with the option of going into the "wilderness" when we wish.

Anyone else have weekend plans?

Hey blog readers! Check out Nicole's blog here about my mystery grab bag giveaway, featuring an item of your choice from my shop. Giveaway ends on Monday, June 24th. Enter while you can!

  I have had the melt-your-own-crayons-into-this-shape-diy pinned for quite a while. I especially loved the heart-shaped ones used for Valentine's Day.
 I began my search for cute-shaped silicone bakeware. After being faked out by a tiki face ice cube tray, I was more careful to make sure that the silicone could withstand baking. The princess castle was the winner. I set my oven to 250 degrees and baked the crayons for about 25 minutes. I let the crayons completely cool in the mould and then pushed them out. Perfect for little fingers!

We also made pizzas out of Italian bread. Spaghetti sauce, mushrooms, spinach, and daiya mozzarella. Yum!

What are you doing/did you do on your lazy Sunday? Monday is coming too soon, once again.

A few of my favorite items from Etsy this week:

from minusOne

from sealmaiden

from SoulRole

 Last weekend, I had the fabulous opportunity to shoot a wedding with Ryan for Cang and Vy. It was a traditional Vietnamese ceremony and it was spectacular.

So many people were packed into the house for the ceremony.

I love chandeliers.

First dance.

The first of a ten course meal. Suckling pig variety.

Noodle bowl with shrimp and veggies.

Sharkfin soup.

crunchy fried chicken

lobster with ginger and scallions

abalone on a bed of greens

fish

veggie noodles

I enjoy being a second shooter...I can look out for the fun extra shots and not have to worry about getting the main shots at the same time. The ceremony had started about 10 miles from my house and then ended up in Boston. We had 12 hours to capture as much as we could and between the two of us, we got what we needed. The wedding party was very fun and everyone was friendly. I ended up being in a few wedding photos because the grooms wanted me to do shots with them before the reception. What a day. At some point, I will link up some of Ryan's photos as well.

P.S. If you are wondering about the copious amounts of meat featured in these photos...yes, I am still vegan. Part of providing a service for people is accepting where they are at and putting aside my biases to make this day the best possible.