I almost forgot! My Portland Adventure!

Last Friday started out with all of us meeting at Starbucks to get coffee before we left for Portland. I can't even begin to tell you how surreal it felt to just casually sit there and drink an Iced Coffee and talk. I felt so out of it, could be that I woke up at 5:30 in the morning :) Anyways, we all piled into the 2 vehicles and headed out. I was really glad that Tina was along, not only because I just love her, but because it meant we got to stop for a bathroom break :)
Once there in Portland, about 3 hours later, we introduced ourselves to the people in charge. Taylor, oh so graciously, introduced me as Mackenzle, his nickname for me. Yeah, I didn't spell my name wrong, it's pronounced Mc-Ken-zle. The guy there was like, excuse me?! I said "No my name is really mackenzie" and Taylor and Josh were like, "you can call her Kenzorg too!"
Anyways, we started unloading stuff. Ok, I thought I had alot of stuff when I moved?? Wow, Josh had so much! But it was fun. The Administrator/Organizer freak in me couldn't stand looking at their room for very long, so after the 3 of us made an exciting trip to WinCo, we unpacked a bunch of stuff. We met a really funny guy named Daniel, but he goes by Double D, he's their Dorm Leader who lives two rooms away. He is hilarious! Had us laughing for quite awhile. (NO, there's no interest there, just giving details)
Oh, and then there is this guy Drew, even funnier! First thing Josh says to him about me when Josh introduced us was "This is Mackenzie, if you know of any cute single guys around here, she's looking for a husband!" I am not even kidding! He totally said that!

I'm sorry this is getting so long, but it was quite the adventure!

So, jumping ahead a couple hours; Noelle and I hung out on the lawn in front of the girls dorms for awhile. We had a little girl time and talked. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile. She is the other half of my brain you know ;) Sorry, inside joke!

Around 6 we all left to meet some people at the Lloyd Center (Mall), and then we got onto the MAX. The MAX is hard to describe, it looks like a monorail/subway/train/trolly all mixed into one. It goes really fast down the street & is alot of fun! The first thing all the people that we were with do when we get on it is start singing some funny Christian song, I'm talking total OLD SCHOOL Christian song. It was as if they were letting people know "WE ARE CHRISTIANS, WATCH OUT!" It was hilarious!
We were on our way to a Minor League Baseball game at the PGE Stadium. (Later I found out that PGE stands for Portland General Electric) The game was the Oregon Beavers VS. the Salt Lake Stingers. Great game, lots of fun, the Beavers lost though. The people we were there with were hilarious! After the game we got back on the MAX and then off again, only to walk around Downtown Portland to find a pizza place & a gilato place. I stayed with a few people at the pizza place and then everyone ended up there eating pizza. And just when the 4 of us (Taylor, Noelle, Josh and I) were ready to go back to the dorm, the others that hadn't been at the Gilato place wanted to go back, so of course we all suffered through sitting there while the others, who hadn't woken up at 5:30, chatted along. We finally told Drew that we needed to go, and he escorted us to where I was meeting Jacquie Martin. As we were walking Drew explained to me how Downtown Portland's grid system worked, because I hate it when I don't know where I am, and now I know the general idea of how it works. I was waiting for Taylor or Josh to make a comment about Drew and I walking & talking but they never did, surprising!
I finally met up with Jacquie & went to her totally cute apartment!
The next day, Jacquie & her roommate dropped me off at the dorms & then we all hung out with Josh's parents. After a lovely trip to Home Depot & another computer place that I can't think the name of, Taylor, Noelle & I went to the Lloyd Center to go shopping, while Josh hung out with his parents.
Finally the time arrived when I had to say goodbye to my dear friends. It was so hard! I gave Noelle & Taylor big hugs and teared up a bit and said goodbye. And then when I was walking towards Josh to say goodbye he was talking to his parents. I said to him "I'll see ya later" and he said "oh, that's right, you're leaving too, that's so weird, I forgot you were leaving." We all walked out to the car & Taylor finally did the little dance that I've been waiting for him to do for months, it was great!
Car ride home was good. I got to be Jan's sounding board, she's just the sweetest thing! As the cars around us were being dumb, I got to see another side of Wayne as well.
I finally got home around 10:15. Long 2 days! It was so much fun though. It was nice seeing a better side of Portland, rather than the crabby people I had met before.
Well, now that you've read my novel about Portland, I must go! I hope you had fun reading my adventure, feel free to ask questions for more details (Like you need anymore details after that story!)!