Mom comes to visit!

Haystack Rock

This last week, my mom came to visit me in Portland! We had a great time together. We tried a couple breweries, went to Voodoo Doughnuts, and visited to the coast. She got in late Wednesday evening, so we ate dinner and crashed early. The second night she was here, we went to our first brewery called Bridgeport. This was my favorite brewery that we went to. They had this really great summer ale called Summer Squeeze. I'm hoping they sell this in North Carolina because it's probably one of my favorite beers now!

On Friday, we rented a car and drove out to Canon Beach. We were warned that this was a more "tourist-y" beach to go to, but seeing as how neither of us are from here, we didn't mind that too much. We got to see the famous "Haystack Rock" at low tide. At low tide, you can see hundreds of starfish clinging to the base of the giant rock, which was a pretty amazing sight. I've never seen so many starfish in my life! Other than that, we walked around the town a little bit. It was pretty foggy out, so we didn't get to go see some other sights we wanted to see. It didn't really bother us, we were pretty exhausted by the time we got home. As exhausted as we were, we still managed to get out that night to try a new brewery. We tried Deschutes Brewery in the Pearl District. We did like it, but we agreed that we liked Bridgeport's beer a little better. The brewery itself was pretty cool, though. They had all of these wooden carvings throughout the restaurant, which, in my opinion, were just really neat.

The next day, we went to Portland's farmer's market. We bought a lot of fruit, flowers, and sauces from local businesses.  We even bought this giant pretzel from one stand, which turned out to be our lunch (you can see the picture to the side, haha). It was really good! Later that day, we took the car and ran some errands around the town. After we ran a bunch of errands, we ended up grabbing a late dinner, coming home, and crashing for the night.  The next day was a pretty lazy day for us. We stayed home and crafted most of the day. Later in the evening, we went to try our third brewery called The Lucky Labrador. Although I liked the ambiance of the brewery, I still like Bridgeport the best. After we went to the brewery, we walked down to the waterfront to scout out a good places to shoot some night photography of the town. We walked 2.5 miles down the waterfront before we found the perfect spot. Once we walked home, it was about time to take the car to go shoot some photos. Since it doesn't get dark here until 9:30, we had to wait until it was pretty late to go out, but it was worth it! Got a great panorama of the city lit up at night (you can actually see it on my main photography blog, but I'll post another here :)

Once our weekend was over, it was back to work. Mom found plenty of things to keep her busy while I was at work, though. She went on a few hikes with her friend and got to see some of the scenery around Portland. On the last night mom was here, we went to Voodoo Doughnuts. Definitely something you have to go do while you're here. It was pretty fun, we had to wait in a line to get them, but it wasn't as long as it normally is.  Mom had the bacon maple doughnut, which is apparently THE doughnut to get while you're here. I didn't taste it myself, but everyone raves about this doughnut. So, if you're ever here, get that one!

Mom and I had a great week together. I was very sad to see her go, but I am glad that I will get to go home in just two weeks! I have really enjoyed my time here in Portland, but I do miss my friends and family and it will be nice to be home.

Well, that's all for tonight! I will try to write again before I leave. Good night everyone!

Is it July already?

Hey guys! Happy 4th of July to everybody!! I hope everyone's having an amazing day with family and friends. I'm hoping to go down to the waterfront tonight and get to see this view:

(this is not my image!)

Anyways, this week was pretty good at Splash. It was a different pace from editing the same Air Jordan shoes (which was all I did for literally two straight weeks), so that was really nice. We helped the New York office with some of their work since we weren't as busy, so I got to edit a bunch of fashion images. It was definitely nice to be able to edit images that weren't tennis shoes. I also ended up learning a lot about how to retouch hair, which is really awesome because it was definitely a weakness of mine. Other than that, I don't have too much to report. I just hope I'm keeping up with everything. My summer here is already half over and I still have so much to learn! More updates soon :)