Pieces are coming together

All the pieces are coming together... both literally and figuratively.

First for the figurative - I received the job offer I had been waiting for this weekend! So that is a HUGE weight my shoulders and a big motivation boost for me. It looks like I'll be working at a firm in downtown Portland and looking forward to moving sometime in June. Now I can relax a bit and get back to business as usual here and finish out tax season without all the added stress of searching for a job.

On the home front, Victor was out in Portland the last part of last week. There wasn't too much visible progress on the house for him to report back on, but we do have windows and electrical outlets... yay! Here's an updated picture. Hopefully siding will be going up shortly and then all the noticeable things like floors and cabinets.


Now for the figurative - here are some projects I've been working on. The first I just got all pieced together this weekend. The second has been a work in progress for a while, but I'm hoping to get it finished by the time I have to move.

Beyond some sewing time and waiting on pins & needles for the job offer to come in, it was a pretty chill birthday weekend. Just the way I like it :)

Have a great week!

tasha

Recent non-house pictures

Here are a few recent pictures of us and the babies... and by babies I mean dogs.

Happy Friday everyone!

House Pictures March 2012

Here's further evidence of how the house is coming...

I'm not sure what this is called but the house is wrapped in something so it's not just exposed wood. Siding and other stuff will go on top.

Guest bathroom shower & tub.

 Plumbing in the laundry room.

 Tub in the master bathroom.


We put our names on it, it's ours!

Victor with Mt. Hood in the background on top of our mountain, Mt. Scott. It was a really clear spring day so we could see Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens clearing from the city. Both are visible from the opposite side of Mt. Scott from where our house is.

That's all for now!

tasha

Update on the Oregon House

I know, I know... I promised to update and did not follow through. I think it goes without saying that the last month has been a complete whirlwind, but I thought I'd just say it one more time. Here is a quick run down on how the past month has gone....

We made our first trip out to Portland a few weeks ago and just completely fell in love. We are even more excited about this new adventure now that we have an idea of what we are getting ourselves into! We did a LOT of research before heading out there for our first house hunting trip and had the entire metro area narrowed down to one suburb and about 15 houses to look at. Long story short, we ended up buying one of the first houses we saw. We ended up in a beautiful neighborhood in Happy Valley, Oregon on top of Mt. Scott. I thought it was just a really big hill until Victor and I got back to Dallas and googled it. It's actually a MOUNTAIN! The elevation is just about 1,000 feet at the top and we are at about 800 feet, so not quite the top of the mountain. Our house backs up to the down-sloping mountain and faces the mall below, and off into the distance Lake Oswego and Downtown Portland. We heard a rumor that we might be able to see the fireworks from downtown on Fourth of July. We will definitely test that out this summer!

Okay, enough talk - here are some pictures!

Okay the first picture is the house... as you can see it still needs some work! It should be finished by the end of April and then Victor can move in! Last weekend we made one more trip out to PDX and got to pick out tile, floors, and landscaping. That was really fun but terrifying at the same time!

The second picture is the view from our living room. This is on a cloudy day and it doesn't look like much, but trust me its amazing!

The third is the door going out to our deck off of the kitchen. We are really excited about having some summers where we can enjoy being outside and hopefully have some dinners on the deck!

The biggest reason I waited to post about the house is I thought we'd have better pictures after going back up there last week. Obviously I have no idea how long construction actually takes as there was little visible progress since we had been out there the first time. Don't get me wrong, TONS was done on the house, but visually it still looks a lot the same.

So for the next month, Victor is traveling around the country covering his territory and working while I am in the dead heat of tax season. But April 25th will be here before we know it and soon we'll be living in the Pacific Northwest! 

Hopefully next week I'll have some pictures of the house with siding up and some news on job prospects for me. That is still in the works as of right now.

Have a great week! And now that we've secured living quarters, start planning your travel out to Portland! All are welcome!

tasha

Oregon

I will be the first to admit that I have been just terrible at keeping this blog up to date. Three posts in three years? Come on, that's just bad. Life has been crazy since Victor and I got married in 2008. Married life has been an adventure, for sure, and at times it has been hard. But overall we are happy, healthy, and very VERY lucky. 

As we are about to embark on our biggest adventure to date, I feel like it's time to get this blog back up and running. It will be hard to keep it updated over the next few months but I feel like we owe it to our friends and family to keep them updated on how this process is going, since we don't get to talk to everyone on a regular basis.

Let me start by saying that 2011 was a very exciting and trying year. Victor started a new job and began traveling quite a bit. It was a big adjustment for both of us, but I think he would agree with me in saying that we are both better for it. A lot of money was spent traveling around the country to see each other, but we did enjoy some very memorable times in places we wouldn't have otherwise visited. Here are a few pictures of us from the holidays. As you can see we are both doing well and don't have much to complain about!

While Victor has been traveling, I have stayed in Dallas with our two babies, Peanut Butter and Jelly. They have kept me company as well as my family and our group of friends here in Dallas. We are so thankful for them and will miss them like crazy!

After seven months of not knowing exactly what the future held, Victor accepted a position out on the West Coast. We will be living in Portland, Oregon and he will be covering a territory that is based out of California, but includes most of the western half of North America (that includes Canada to those Canucks that are reading this!). We are very excited about this new development although the excitement also brings some trepidation. Neither of us have ever visited Oregon, and Victor has never been to the Pacific Northwest. We had always talked about Portland being a top place to visit for us, but we never imagined ourselves living out there! Our first house hunting trip is in about a week and we just can't wait to see what we've gotten ourselves into! Our realtor has been great, and we've been looking at places pretty much non-stop for weeks. Our families have both been very supportive and quick to offer up their house-hunting tips and tricks! The stress of buying our first home in a place we've never even visited, on a short time table while I'm in tax season and Victor is starting a new job is a weight we are dealing with on a daily basis. We are just taking each day as it comes right now and trying to enjoy every moment of it! If you have any tips on the Portland area or have any friends or family out there we'd love to talk to you about it! We only know a handful of people out there!

In a week or so I will definitely have more news about how our trip went and updates on the house hunting experience. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and thanks for reading our blog!!

Love,

Tasha & Victor

July 2010

As usual, I'm quite behind on updating this blog! We had a very busy July and I'm sure I won't do all of the great things we did justice, but I'd like to at least mention them! I'm about to head back in to busy season at work, so I think a monthly summary posting is probably the best I can do until after October!

When we came back from Fourth of July weekend in Austin with my parents, we quickly transitioned into Megan and Steve's wedding festivities. They ha

d tons of family and friends from out of town coming in the week before and we tried to enjoy all that was going on as much as possible. On the Thursday night before the wedding we went out with all the guys and girls for a joint Bachelor/Bachelorette party. The guys started out up in Frisco with dinner at the mall, and the girls started the night off downtown at Ho

tel Zaza. We met up around 11pm and spent the rest of the night together as a 40+ person group! It was a ton of fun!

Friday was nails and lunch for the girls while the guys played golf. This was Victor's first attempt at golf since he had his surgery, and he had a ton of fun! He's played a few times since even in the 100+ degree temps! After nails it was time to get ready for the rehearsal and get out to the church. All the girls, Megan especially, looked beautiful and we all did our best to pay attention to the important instructions! After the rehearsal was dinner at Buca di Beppo

by the Stonebriar Mall and then we all hung out in the presidential suite at the Westin Stonebriar.

The next day was time for the wedding! Unfortunately, it was raining so we could not take any of the pre-wedding pictures outside. We took them downstairs in the lobby instead, and they still turned out beautiful! The ceremony was at Custer Road United Methodist Church in Plano, and the reception was at the

Westin Stonebriar. To quote several of the bridesmaids it was a "Platinum Wedding". It was amazingly beautiful and was classic Megan.

Once the wedding festivities were over, it was time to get back to work! We had a few weekends back at home before it was on to our next adventure. We flew out to Los Angeles, CA to celebrate Andre's 30th birthday with him and Victor's parents. Although Andre complained about the weather being overcast, we were so excited to escape the 100+ degree heat for a few days. We spent most of our time there seeing the sights and enjoying some great food with family. We stayed in a hybrid hotel in Torrance that was very interesting! It was a "green" hotel that apparently a lot of the Toyota and Honda execs stay at when they come to visit. We go to see Andre's apartment, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach on the first afternoon. Then we drove down to Laguna to go to the festival of fine arts and see the "Pageant of the Masters". It took us what seemed like forever to drive down there, but it was well worth it! We also got to see my parent's condo in Aliso Viejo on the way. The show was amazing, but by the time it was over we were exhausted.

The next day we drove into the city and got to see where Andre got his MBA, UCLA. The campus was beautiful and we got to take a bunch of amazing pictures. Real Madrid was practicing at UCLA so we got to see some of the famous soccer players! After UCLA we went to Rodeo Drive for lunch and then walked around. It was neat to see the hotel where Pretty Woman was filmed and walk around all of the designer shops. After that, it was on to the Getty Museum. In my opinion, it was the highlight of our trip! I had never heard of this place before and was blown away but the building itself and some of the artwork it housed. That night we ate sushi at the restaurant at our hotel and celebrated Andre's birthday.

Sunday was a short day as we had to get to the airport. We hung out around Redondo and got to meet my cousin, Zoe, at lunch in Torrance. She works and lives near Andre and it was so good to see her and Carter! Hopefully we'll be able to make more trips out to Cali in the future. I wish we could have stayed for a week!

July seemed like a whirlwind for sure, and I think the rest of the year might be the same way! I'll try to update this as much as I can. I couldn't fit all of our amazing pictures from July on this post, so please go see our flickr site to view them:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/travinowich/

Love,

Tasha

Fourth of July 2010

Well it's been a while since I've updated this blog, and to be honest its because I forgot how to get back into it! But nowthat we've gotten our fancy SLR camera and a new Mac to play with, I hope we will update this blog much more frequently so we can keep our family and friends from far away up to date on our latest and greatest!

For Fourth of July, Victor and I went down to Austin to spend some time with my parents. We have been to Austin more times than we can count, mostly for volleyball tournaments when I was growing up, but we've never really enjoyed the city. My dad took

us to a lot of great local, funky places and we had a really great time! We can't wait to spend another long weekend in Austin with them! It is so great to enjoy a city with such a laid-back, fresh attitude (which is such a difference from Dallas!) that is only a few hours away.

The first day, we took the opportunity to tour the state capitol. Victor had a great time taking pictures of the interesting building, while my parents and I enjoyed the ramblings of a very enthusiastic tour guide!

Later we got to walk around the largest Whole Foods I've ever seen down the street from my dad's apartment. Then we got the grand tour of the apartment and checked out the pool and the rooftop as a potential fireworks watching spot for the next night.

The next day we drove down to Lake Austin to have lunch at a funky restaurant on the lake. While getting eaten alive by bugs we enjoyed some fried pickles and pizza

and took in the scenery of the lake!

Later we went up to the outlets at Round Rock and went on to do some damage there. Then we went back downtown, checked out REI, a local bookstore

and Amy's Ice cream, which was fantastic! Needless to say, when we went to get dinner a couple hours later, no one was very hungry! After dinner we walked over to the pedestrian bridge to check out the fireworks. T

he fireworks were amazing, even

though they started almost an hour late! And somehow Victor acquired a light sabre while looking for the bathroom. Afterwards we headed back towards the apartment, stopping in at the same restaurant we went to for dinner for a couple

drinks before bed.

The next morning we met my parents for brunch at Katz Diner and then headed back to Dallas (with a stop at the Hillsboro Outlets, of course!). Thanks Mom & Dad for a great weekend! We hope to be back in Austin soon, although hopefully after

it cools off a little bit!