Putting Oregon on the map!

Now everyone has heard of popular states like New York, Texas, California and even Maine and could point them out on a map. But I come from one of the lesser talked about States...Oregon. I was appalled the first year I moved from Oregon to N.J. that one of my well-educated colleagues thought Oregon was in the midwest (I guess "well-educated" is a relative term).

So, imagine my surprise to open my Snapple All Natural Green Tea bottle today (yummy, btw!) and see the following under the cap "There is an underground mushroom in Oregon that measures 3.5 miles across." So I looked it up and found out more information here! Just a little something to put Oregon on the map:)

Here's a little public service announcement about my home state from yours truly: Oregon is a beautiful state with lots of outdoorsy type stuff to do. The far western side is quite rainy, but once you get past the Cascade Mountain Range, the weather is desert-like in the summer and quite snowy in the winter.

Oooouuuuurrr house...

...is a very, very, very fine house. Okay, so there aren't 2 cats in the yard, but the house is a very nice house (and we do have a crazy squirrel). "B" and I closed on our dream home in mid November. "B" is living there now and I'll move in a few days before the wedding in March. So, it doesn't exactly feel completely real to me yet and probably won't for a few months, but he's settling in and I'll slowly start moving small stuff over the next few months.

So, long overdue, here are some pics of our new home:

Beautiful silestone countertops and appliances that are only a couple years old (yeah!)

Family room, which gets lots of light (picture taken from the loft).

Now, lets take a trip down the beautiful wood floors in the entryway.

And up the stairs to the loft and the bedrooms. When at the top of the stairs, the loft is to the left and looks down into the family room (you can see the opening in this pic).

Here's one of my favorite rooms...the loft. It also gets lots of light and it will be my room to relax in, read a book, whatever. The princesses are going to go eventually...once we figure out what we want to do in its place.

And last but most certainly not least, the back yard. Here's a picture of our biggest "lawn" ornament. It's great to have, but takes up such an enormous part of the yard that we're going to dismantle and relocate the equipment. Then our biggest project (for next spring) is to put in a lawn instead of bark dust.

I'm sure I'll have more pics later. Right now the house is pretty empty and probably will be for quite some time as we make it our own.