May the odds be ever in your favor...

i'm gonna post pictures and start from there. let's hope i don't forget anything. haha.

At the Pirate Festival

Salted Caramel Cupcake. Absolutely delicious.

Pirate puppet show

blow up ship being destroyed by a giant octopus

My pirate costume. Very historical accurate.

Don't let this fool you, jarrod was only in full costume for this picture, which was taken about 10 minutes before we left the festival.

Pirate on stilts.

 

 

 

 

 The pirate festival (http://portlandpiratefestival.com/) was lots of fun. There were people dressed up like pirates everywhere, there were shops with pirate-related clothing and other related items (swords, guns, etc). i think we had the most fun watching the random shows they put on. the host of those shows were just hilarious. we were laughing non-stop, that is, until we left the festival... when we were ready to go home, we got into jarrod's car and to our disappointment, it didn't start. we were desperately hoping it was just bc jarrod's car was low on gas, since earlier in the week jarrod had fixed his car. so we went in search of a gas station. the closest one was off the highway, 1.2 miles away, so we walked 2.4 miles total. that's not too bad, but it still wasn't fun. all-in-all, we both handled it very well. (that's an accomplishment for me, bc we all know i wanted to go off and kill something. haha) it did turn out that jarrod was just low on gas, so yay! his car is truly fixed! what a relief.
onto more pictures:

Red Velvet Cake Balls before being iced

Red velvet cake balls, mostly iced with white chocolate

The "Mancake" from Stepping Stone Cafe

 The pictures above are centered around Jarrod's 23rd birthday. in case you were unaware, jarrod loves red velvet cake.(i think he gets it from his dad. haha) i think he gets red velvet cake for his birthday every year, so i decided to make something special with the key ingredient: red velvet cake. i made white chocolate covered cake balls. they did not turn out as pretty as the pictures i saw online, but they tasted alright. (i think they were really sweet, but jarrod absolutely LOVED them) they took a long time to make, even though it was really simple to make them. all you have to do is choose a cake mix you want, and bake the cake like normal. then you crumble up the cake, add a 16 oz can of cream cheese icing and mix it all together so that the cake will have consistency to make balls. let them cool and ice them. icing them was a pain in the butt. i didn't get enough white chocolate icing and the cake kept crumbling and ruining the pretty look of the icing. in general, icing the cake balls was the worst and i told jarrod i probably wouldn't make them again, which disappointed him. haha. but maybe i'll give them another shot. i do have to master icing them....blah. haha.
as for jarrod's birthday day, i took him to the stepping stone cafe (http://steppingstonecafe.com/) for breakfast. it had been featured on man vs. food and the menu said they had a cinnamon roll french toast. (yes, i am still looking for my replacement to the Cheyenne....no luck, so far.) Jarrod got a mancake, which is about 13inches; it's pretty big. he didn't finish, but in his defense, he also had some scrambled eggs and sausage...or was it bacon? i don't remember. haha. oh well. that's all we did on jarrod's birthday bc he had to go to work at 4. (if you were unaware, jarrod is back to his old, terrible sleeping schedule, ie: goes to sleep bw 3-4am and wakes up bw noon-2. yeah. terrible.) so that was jarrod's birthday, for jarrod. we had breakfast, he worked... that's it.
i, on the other hand, still had the day off, so i spent the evening with catherine. we went to Jimmy Johns and then we were going to go watch Toy Story 3 in the park, but once we got there, the park was infested with kids and so i made the decision that we come back to the house and watch xmen: first class (thanks to evan and britt for getting jarrod that for his birthday. haha). before coming home though, catherine and i took jarrod a jimmy johns sandwich bc it was his birthday. so let's add this up: i bought jarrod brunch and dinner. too much money in one day. blagh. haha.
that was for jarrod's birthday day. i had planned an extra fun surprise for jarrod for another birthday gift. i decided to take him to Ground Kontrol (http://groundkontrol.com/) which is a retro arcade. the fun thing was i invited jarrod's friends from work so that he would be totally surprised when he saw him there. i thought he'd have a great time with his work buddies, as catherine and i were gonna be there, and he's always surrounded by us or other girls (our roomies). well, i took him to ground kontrol, but none of his friends showed up. LAME. i'm not gonna talk about my disappointment. jarrod didn't know until after we left what was supposed to happen, and it didn't effect him either way. we (jarrod, catherine and i) still had an absolutely awesome time there. ground kontrol is defintely a way fun place, and we plan on going back again, probably very soon.
here's a special picture for my mom, taken at ground kontrol: 

it was the first game i played. :)

 

 

anywho, since tuesday (when we went to ground kontrol) nothing has happened. we were gonna go see The Lion King 3D on sunday, but i just remembered jarrod has P.I. (physical inventory) that day and now i will not get to see him until tuesday.
TUESDAY: catherine, jarrod, and i are going to SEATTLE for the day. a few things we have planned: the space needle, pike place market, a chocolate factory, and bimbo mexican restaurant. maybe something else in between... i can't wait!!!
and that's probably all that's gonna happen for the next few weeks. but i'll still try to keep you updated. maybe post some more pictures, if i take any.
i'm gonna leave you with this picture:

proof that iris is no longer a scaredy cat: she chose to sit in catherine's lap instead of mine or jarrods. HER CHOICE. oh iris, you're growing up so fast! (she'll be 3 october 1st. :O )

-sarah-