Song/Movie of the Day

Today's Song of the Day is "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire. I love this song...but I love it more now that it's on the Where the Wild Things Are trailer. Both the song and the trailer give me chills when I listen to/watch them.



Where the Wild Things Are

Portland - Part 2: Out with Holly and Ojas

Like I said in my last post...the second half of my Portland vacation was spent going out and about with Holly and Ojas. Even this half of the trip was diverse because we went did city and outdoorsy things.

This pretty much sums up how we all felt about Portland. It wasn't a bad "weird" though. It just had a lot of character.


The first thing we did was drive out of Portland to Multnomah Falls. I had been there with my family before but I knew I had to take Ojas and Holly there.



We enjoyed all parts of the falls from climbing up the top:


To relaxing at the stream at the bottom:


We even had Sno-Cones...I don't think it could have gotten any better than that.


The next day we headed for downtown. We had heard about the Saturday Market but I never thought it could be so huge! Turns out it's like the largest crafts market in the country. Pretty impressive, Portland.



Another thing we did was go to the Chinese Gardens in the middle of the city:




We also went to Voodoo Doughnuts. They're known for having crazy doughnut flavors. Holly had one that had rice krispies and peanut butter on it.



For two nights, my masi and masa were nice enough to take us out for dinner and drinks. I had so much fun with them!
Here are the girls:


and the guys:


My masa got Ojas to drink one too many Long Islands. By the time we got to Denny's, Ojas was DONE.


The next night, Binamasi and Mukeshmasa took us to UrbanFondue/Bartini. I have to say...it was way better than Melting Pot.



One of the best things about this trip was whitewater rafting. We were supposed to go while Ojas was there but we missed the trip and had the go the next day when he'd already be gone. It sucks that he missed it...but Binamasi, Holly and I had fun anyways.

I'll end this post with a few action shots.

Portland - Part 1: Family

The first week of my time in Portland was spent lazying about my Binamasi's (aunt's) house with a large part of my mom's family. Almost all the girls were there - everyone except Ninamasi and Sonal, who we all missed. We had a lot of fun. Did a lot of sitting around/drinking/talking/dancing..yes dancing. In the kitchen.

To thank my masi for having us all there I painted these martini glasses for her:




Turns out that my little cousins love doing crafty things too.
Here's Kayla (5)

Jayna (3)

And Rhianna or like we call her, Nani (2)


A lot of our time was spent with these girls. They're so freakin cute. As my friend Colleen says, they made my ovaries twitch a little.
We watched them stress out while learning how to ice skate:

Admire themselves at the mall:

and dance (you gotta see the first 8 seconds)



I don't have sound on my camera...so sorry about that. But man oh man were those girls crazy about Halo and Boom Boom Pow. The little one even knew how to mouth the words to both songs. She's TWO YEARS OLD!

One day my masa and masi's friend came to visit with 2 more kids. I swear there was a circus in the living room. There was a person/group playing with each kid. (Yeah that's Holly playing with one of them)



At some point, Maya and I decided to take a break and go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...mostly cause we couldn't wait till we got home to see it. The movie was soo soo good. Have to admit that I wouldn't mind seeing it again.



I was sad to see my family disband as the week ended. We Patels are a crazy bunch.

Coming up...Portland- Part 2: Holly and Ojas

Back to the Grindstone

I'm back from Portland! It was a great trip. I got the perfect mixture of time spent with family, friend, and boyfriend. Hopefully, I can get some pics up soon. For now, it's seriously time to find a job. This is getting ridiculous.

Other things I need/want to do:
- Read (I'm on my NINTH book for the summer!)
- Revive my dead plants...sorry you didn't get taken care of while I was gone.
- Find a job
- Jury duty. yuck.
- Go to Tampa for a combo "Tye-Dye with my yahoo group/Goodbye, Colleen/Welcome to Florida, Rohan" weekend
- Find a job
- Hang out with Naples friends more
- Expand my music knowledge

Speaking of the last...here's the song of the day. It's True Affection by The Blow. The video made by some guys cracks me up...especially at around :50.

PORTLAND!

Tomorrow I will be here:


...playing with these little girls!!!

Song of the Day

I caught snippets (sp?) of MJ's Memorial. While coverage of his death is getting a little old, there were some things that I still found interesting. One of them was what his favorite song was. I forgot how good this song was. So here's Charlie Chaplin's "Smile"...Nat King Cole style:

July 3 and 4

On the 3rd of July my uncle threw a little dinner party for some family and friends. Naturally when the word "party" came up I flashed back to senior year of undergrad. My roomies and I used to go crazy with theme parties so I asked my uncle what his theme was gonna be. After thinking for a few seconds he decided to go with a simple "Enjoy life." Everyone was assigned something to bring. I was told to bring dessert. I wondered how I could incorporate the theme into cupcakes without simply writing it in icing. This is what I came up with:



Where's a place where people enjoy life? The beach!



The party was so so much fun. Patels on their own are silly...but you throw some alcohol in there and the silliness is quadrupled. This is my uncle from Miami. When he posed for the picture my brother said "Throw it down, Uncle!" and this is what we got:



Here are some of the women folk at dinner time. My uncle (Nana) made his awesome Thai soup and coconut chicken curry.



Here's the cook!



It was good seeing my cousins. I can't people how much they've grown up! Here's Rishal, my brother Deven, and Rikesh:



To add to the silliness we went with our tradition of playing Pictionary. It was a very heated game. It always is when you put men against women. My aunt started cheating in the middle...and the men knew it. My response? Squeezing her face and asking them if this face would ever lie to them:



Then there was the 4th of July. I went to Tampa for day and some friends and I stopped off at Cindy's BBQ. We were all having fun but then I found a tiny American hat. Why is it that small things are so much fun. I knew the only person who would truly appreciate the tiny hat would be Kalen. Oh was I right. It took so much effort to take these pictures because we were laughing so hard.



Papa says "Happy 4th of July...now get this off my head or I'll cut you". He's a tough cat.

Blog Borrowing

I know. I know. Two posts back-to-back. Need I remind you that I have no life? My boss hasn't called me with any work now so I'm afraid this blog will suffer from my boredom.

This is from my friend Antoinette's blog. She works at the cutest place and they have the coolest blog. Here's a post from her that I had to share with my other Harry Potter loving friends.


Weasley/Granger Wedding

Song of the Day

Thanks to my friend Kayla...I am completely addicted to MGMT.

I feel like this song describes how I feel about growing up sometimes...without the drug references, that is.



Couldn't embed the real music video but I think this one set to Planet Earth footage is way better anyways.

Sir Poops-A-Lot

I spy a little rabbit:




One of the things I like about being home a lot is that I get to let my pet rabbit out of his cage so that have a little freedom. I guess it really depends on what mood he's in because some days he hops around like a hoppin' fool and other times he picks a spot and just chills out there. I think today's one of his more relaxing days. He's been under this table for about an hour now...



What a nerd.

Song of the Day

I've been listening to a lot of music lately and sometimes I feel the need to share a good song. That said, here's today's song: