Action Packed Summer

Hello from the depths of summer in Portland!

Every spring I think to myself "Okay! Summer's almost here. I'm gonna just lay low and chill out and enjoy summer and not make a shit load of plans." This never happens. This summer has been no exception. So let's just dive right in:

Cafe Joseph

Back in late May my other half, Joe Tatum, came for a visit over Memorial Day. When I asked what he wanted to do while he was here he said "I want to meet more of your friends." I had been toying with the idea of doing a backyard coffee shop pop-up thing ever since buying that fancy-ass espresso machine a few months ago and this seemed like the perfect excuse. Thus Cafe Joseph was born! We invited about 20 people over and I served people espresso for about 3 hours. It was fun but my GOD it was busy. Charlie was on pastry duty and made a pretty damn good fruit danish as well.

If you weren't invited, fear not! We kept it small since it was a trial run. Ultimately, it was fun and I 100% plan to do it again soon.

A visit from the Blauvelts / Charlie officiates a wedding

Charlie's parents came to visit for a week at the end of June. We took them out to Astoria and to the Society Hotel Spa in Bingen, Washington (which Charlie's dad particularly enjoyed). If you haven't been to the Society Spa it's 100% worth a weekend trip. Charlie's parents were in town for Charlie's cousin's wedding and Charlie was the officiant! He did great, though it was outside, 103 degrees, and one of the groomsmen was concerned that Charlie wasn't quoting any bible verses during the ceremony. That groomsman survived, though I'm not sure his relationship with Jesus did without hearing a bible verse at a wedding ceremony. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

New York

Right after the wedding Charlie and I went to New York City for a few days to see the Joe Hisaishi / Studio Ghibli symphonic orchestra concert. I went to it a few years back without Charlie (which was a bummer for him) so when they announced another we jumped on it. The concert was great and we did a lot of wandering around, visited the Met and the Transit Museum (which I loved), and ate some delicious things. We stayed in Brooklyn in the Boerum Hill neighborhood near Fort Greene Park. I get why people want to live there. The brownstones are so beautiful. We also got to have dinner at a great Thai place (Wayla) with Charlie's childhood friend, Hana, and her girlfriend who live in the city. They were lovely, the food was delicious, and I got top 5 most drunk I've ever been. Charlie's friend had to get a cab home cause she was so blasted. It was a great time.

Hannah's visit

A few weeks ago my sweet sweet childhood friend Hannah reached out to say she was visiting a friend in Vancouver, WA, and wanted to see me. I was so excited as I hadn't seen her in about 8 years. Our other childhood friend Nicole who lives in Roseburg came up to hang out as well. They stayed with us for a night and we went to breakfast at Pine State Biscuits, went for a hike at Latourell Falls, and then spent a few hours talking about people we grew up with and wondering what happened to them. It was great great fun.

What's next?

As I'm writing this it's our first weekend in maybe 2 months with no real plans. Thank god cause I'm exhausted. Our next trip is to Sweden for our 2-year wedding anniversary in September. I'll do a whole post about it when we're back. The Olympics are in full swing and we've been watching a lot of them. At the moment we've been particularly enjoying the shot-put event cause the dudes are hot (and there's one from Oregon). I remember in high school my dad saying that he thought I'd be good at shot put. Maybe I could've been one of these dudes?

oh well,

joseph