Most of you know already, but Brad and I just bought our first house! It was an exciting and surprisingly easy process. It was great working with sellers who were very willing to work with us to make it a nice smooth transaction. I think this house was meant to be ours - when we first came to look at the house, there was a little turtle statue by the path to the front door (b/c of the turtle from our engagement) and because the street we live on is called Oregon Trail Lane! So I guess this means we don't have to change our blog name ;) BTW, our new address is:
14877 SW Oregon Trail Lane
Beaverton, OR 97006
When we first started house hunting, we were originally looking at townhomes/condos in downtown Portland because we wanted to be close to the city. When we realized the size of place we'd get in the city for our price range, we started expanding our search to outside of Portland. We also later decided that we wanted a backyard, so that moved us a little further outside the city. We ended up finding a house in Beaverton, a western suburb of Portland, about 6 miles outside the city. What a great time to buy too...we got a good price on the house, almost all of our closing costs paid, a 4.875% 30 year fixed interest rate, and the $8,000 tax credit! We closed within 45 days and we moved in the weekend of July 4th. It was a stressful move since we literally packed all of our boxes within 1 week of moving. But we made it here! After moving in, we were up until 12:30am every night unpacking boxes so that we could have a little housewarming party this weekend. We just invited some of our closest friends in Portland since we didn't want to have a big shindig just yet. Below are some pics of us finally settled into the house and our housewarming party.
A pic of the backyard with all of our new deck furniture and new grill =) Brad has been loving all the yard work lately...we'll see how long that lasts!
Our cat, Jasmine, enjoying the backyard. She's out there everyday for hours! It's hard to get her back into the house. The entire backyard is gated, so even if we did leave her out there overnight, she wouldn't be able to get out. If you look at the top right hand corner of this picture, you'll find our strawberry patch. Fresh strawberries (yum!).
What's a lawn without the lawn games? We bought a bocce set and a cornhole set - we had to represent Northwestern University! Good thing just about all of our friends here have some tie to Northwestern so no one was offended by our set.
A pic of our kitchen all cleaned up. The flowers in the picture are from our hydrangea bushes outside our house - there's 3 large hydrangea bushes with white, blue/purple, and pink hydrangeas. There's constantly flowers growing in the backyard (we have roses, wisteria, lavender, daisies, and so many others we're not sure what they are yet!).
A pic of our bench seat in the kitchen. The big bush behind the window is the hydrangea bush.
A pic of the living room - the chess set is made of obsidian and onyx. We actually got it when we were in Cozumel, Mexico (the same vacation we got engaged at). We have unpacked most of the boxes, but we still haven't hung pictures up yet, as you'll see since the painting is still sitting on the fireplace. This painting was painted by our friend Joanna, if you look at it up close the picture is actually a bunch of pixels.
A picture from our housewarming party...everyone just chilling on the back deck. Actually, some of the group may be playing cornhole or bocce.
Brad's co-workers brought their 2 daughters with them...here's Eva playing a little cornhole with Matt and Kristina. We're trying to put a little midwest into her!
Everyone enjoying some grub!
Here's a pic of the other daughter, Anna. They're cuties! That's it for now with the pics, we'll show more house pics as we get pictures hung up.
Brad and I finally checked out The China Town. It's a restaurant probably 1/2 a mile from our house that serves Dim Sum!! And they serve Dim Sum all day! We went on a Sunday at prime time (around 11:30am) and got seated within 3 min. Much shorter than the lines we're used to waiting in Chicago's Chinatown... The Dim Sum was good too...not the best we've ever had, but still very good (and I would definitely consider myself a Dim Sum connisseur). 
The Northwestern University alumni group here in Portland hosted a free picnic for fellow alums. We actually had about 25 alums come out for the event. The day was gorgeous and the food and company were good. If you've been following our blog, you probably already know that Brad and I are very active with the NU alumni group in the area. It was actually a great source for some of our new friends in the area.
Here's a pic of our cat, Jas, laying out in the backyard. She loves it back there! We can leave her out there for hours, and she's fine. Every morning before leaving for work, she's always pawing at the door to go outside and play.
The next couple of pictures are of our flowers in our backyard. The yellow rose developed all by itself, it was a surprise flower that Brad and I didn't know about! 
Roses grow like mad out here in the Pacific Northwest. No wonder Portland is called the City of Roses. 
I love our hydrangea bushes! This purple one is actually right outside the window by our kitchen bench seat (see last post). 
We have some white hydrangeas (or maybe they're going to turn pink?) starting to develop as well. Right next to it we have pink hydrangeas.
And finally, we have daisies. These daisies are actually by our driveway out front.
