My Mom was Here! // Living Stephen

Hello everybody!

Since moving up to Portland, I have gone into this state of dismission. I have tried my best to not really think about how far I am from the comfort of Southern California and how unreal it still feels to think that I live in another state now. Luckily for me, I have had plenty of my friends and family come up and visit in the past couple weeks.

To my surprise, it helps so much more having a little taste of California every couple of weeks. Having someone who I love come up and stay with us for a week makes me miss it, but still feel alright about it. I haven't been forgotten since leaving and the ones I love the most have continued to reach out. My biggest fear about leaving was having to make "all new friends," like all of a sudden my friends from home weren't there anymore. Fortunately, that's not the case! I've been able to keep a balance of friends in Portland and friends in California.

This is all beside the point.. (haha.) Basically, my Mom came up and visited with my little brother, Christopher, for a couple of days. It was obviously really exciting and fun to be able to spend some time with my Mom. She is so supportive and amazing at giving advice. I was able to really delve into some of the emotions that only a Mom can bring out.

We did a couple of super exciting (tourist) things! I only snapped a couple of pictures because of the rain and the cold, but hopefully this gives you a little taste of what Portland is like!

One of the mornings, we went out to breakfast as a whole family. Tyler was able to take a couple of days off, and so was my brother, Robert. We went to Cafe Du Berry, which is a little French restaurant. Although the food wasn't what you would expect, it was still super delicious. (It definitely was not American, super food.)

We then headed up to the Vista House, which is just one of the first stopping points on your way to Multnomah Falls (if you're going the right way.) As you can see, it was clearly a pretty cold day.. So ignore the suffering all Tyler's face.

I had to add a couple of pictures from the falls. It was rainy and cold, so it was pretty difficult, but hopefully these two will suffice!

We went down to Saturday Market on the Waterfront of Portland. It is seriously one of the most fun things to do in Oregon, and I highly recommend stopping by some of the shops there. Unfortunately, I was a bad blogger and didn't take any pictures of the actual market, but did get a couple of my family by the water.

It really was such a fun little stay-cation. There's something so calming and unnerving about having your Mom around. All of a sudden the stress from day to day life disappears.

Anyways, I hope you guys are having a good week! I'll be posting a video on my Youtube channel sometime within the next couple of days. If you haven't already, go over and give it look! I'm so happy I started filming and hope you guys are enjoying it!

See you soon!

Stephen

San Diego to Portland // Living Stephen

Hello guys!

As I mentioned in my first post, I recently moved up to Portland, Oregon! A lot of people (in real life, and over the internet) have asked me why I took to the long trek out of Southern California and into Northern Oregon. Fortunately for me, the whole entire move was pretty easy, and I feel happier than ever in this city.

It all started the very first time I came up to Portland. My older brother, Robert, has been living up here since I was in high school, and when I finally had a steady income and enough time, I made it a point to come up and visit him. I can still remember the first time I visited, and how amazing everything seemed. The trees were so green, the air felt so clean, and the people seemed so nice. I absolutely fell in love with the city I had only seen for a week. 

As years passed, I knew exactly where I wanted to be, and where I didn't want to be anymore. I knew I wanted to get out of California and move up to Portland with my brother. What I didn't know was that I was going to be falling in love with someone right before I was planning on leaving. I met my boyfriend, Tyler, on January 12, 2012, and we haven't been apart since. I thought what I wanted was to get away from California, but he's always been so much more important, and I don't regret staying longer in California.

(From one of our first dates, how cute.)

Now we get to more recent times. As of about a year ago, Tyler and I knew we wanted to live together. We were both in a place in our lives where we knew what we wanted, and what we wanted was to be together. We had talked for months about it, and decided that Los Angeles would be the best for us.. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as planned. I didn't get accepted into the school I wanted, and I kept thinking about how much I disliked LA and how badly I didn't want to live there. We finally had to have that one talk (you know, the one talk.. that one talk you don't want to have, cause it could go really great.. or really bad). I remember we sat and talked in my bed, and just got out all the feelings we had about moving. By the end of the conversation, we both decided that LA maybe wouldn't be best, and decided that Portland might be a better option!

We ended up making a trip up to Portland in March of this year, and luckily for me, Tyler fell in love with the city! (Maybe not the rain and cold, but everything else!) We both came up to this city for a change of scenery and to find out a little bit more about ourselves. We are both going back to school, both have really good jobs, and live with my brother in his house, which has been perfect.

(My fashion sense is not as ugly as that hat I'm wearing, we were just hiking, I promise..)

Anyways, I felt like I needed to write all this out and just give a full explanation of why we moved. I'm so excited to the see the new adventures that we go on together, and to see all that this city can offer us!

Until next time,

Stephen

PS. I was going to write about the trip moving up here.. but I didn't want to write too much. Maybe another time ;)