SLIDER

MY STORY

My name is Jo. I'm 33-years-old and live in Portland, Oregon with my Hubby and toddler Bean. I love reading and writing, Umpqua chocolate peanut butter ice cream and iced lattes, taking pictures, looking at pictures, pop psychology, watching people, hiking, playing at the park with my family, novel places and experiences, spending time outdoors, visiting with my best girlfriends, Nurse Jackie and Hank Moody, the color green, medical/research articles, and quite obviously, archiving my life. And this is my story.



I was born in 1982 in San Francisco to Al, Nancy, and big brother Brian.



I was a towheaded California kid who loved the sand, gymnastics, and apparently this little yellow purse.



But we moved to the Portland area in 1990, just months after the "Quake of '89," and I've always identified as an Oregonian.


I went to school in West Linn from the middle of 2nd grade through high school, where I made some of my very best friends.


I went on to college in Tacoma, WA.


My mom was sick again - breast cancer - and we took our last family photo all together in 2001.


I spent the summers between freshman/sophomore and junior/senior year of college working as a waitress in Block Island, RI, where my brother lived and worked as a chef.




I finished at UPS in 2004 with a degree in Psychology, where I made some more of my best friends.


And then, not knowing which direction to head next, my very best friend and I took our next adventure together.


We moved to Telluride, CO, where, again, my brother lived and worked as a chef.









I spent two years waiting tables, skiing, hiking, and freelance writing before deciding it was time for the next adventure.


So in the Spring of 2006 I landed myself in Lake Tahoe, CA.



And got a "real" writing job, working as a staff reporter for the daily Tahoe-Truckee newspaper, The Sierra Sun.


Where I met this guy.


We were fast friends, and before we knew it we were spending all our time together. Beard and all.



We had lots of adventures, including our first "wedding" in Vegas.




With goals of South American travel, we started saving money in a brown paper bag in my desk drawer.

In October 2007, we set off on a 6-month adventure to Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.














After our money ran out - and thus our trip ended - we moved back to Portland, where we both grew up.





On a trip back to Tahoe, we got engaged.




Our next adventure included wedding planning - and a move to Eugene for graduate school.



We were married in August 2009 in Lake Tahoe in a pre-Pinterest DIY style wedding at my in-laws, Close Quarters.















We later got pregnant in, you guessed it, Lake Tahoe.



We bought our first house, in SW Portland and lucked into a perfect neighborhood.


Our Bean was born March 2012. You can read her birth story here and here.






Growing, growing ...


















We are living healthily and happily as a family of three - the Hubs works as a high school Language Arts teacher; I work part-time as a speech-language pathologist; and the Bean has daycare or Beebee Days.


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