Walter goes to Portland

Two weekends ago we decided to take Walter to Portland. We needed to put some miles on him so Joshua could change the oil to check something, needed to see if the fridge would stay on for days at a time at the correct temperature, wanted to sleep in him 2 days in a row and cook a meal to see if we forgot anything, but mostly we wanted a mini adventure.

We drove about 2 hours toward our destination on Friday night, set up in a state park where we read books and hung out huddled under blankets. Saturday morning we drove into Portland where we got Blue Star donuts, my favorite. They have a blueberry basil and passion fruit cocoa nib that I could eat dozens of! The sun was shining and it wasn't too cold so we walked around a bit, did some baby shopping at some second hand shops. We went to a fancy food court where I introduced Joshua to bimbap bowls and we got fancy soft serve ice cream- his with lemon curd and sprinkles, mine with a berry hard shell and homemade oreos, and walked along the water.

That night we struggled a bit to find a place to stay for awhile but finally nestled ourselves in at a park. We got to cook dinner in Walter for the first time too. We made hot dogs, onions, and mushrooms along with mac and cheese. We spent the night talking about how cool Walter is and playing a few games.

We made some sausage and bagels in the morning then drove off to do a little hike. The trailhead ended up being packed and we weren't feeling super interested so Joshua started driving straight toward the coast. The sun was out again and we were happy but then we found out we could go out and drive on the beach, even happier. It was like the beach was a road, tons of trucks blazing by, people flying kites, digging for clams. We popped open the back, which we hadn't done before, and rolled ourselves in blankets and pillows and did some great people and ocean watching. It was immensely lovely to just sit there all cozy with sun on our faces and cold breeze by the water. Plus we felt so cool driving on the beach. 

Then we headed on home. It was a great mini retreat. Also our fridge worked great!

While he was out

Hubs was in Portugal for 2.5 weeks recently (sad faces)
I'm not awesome at being alone, extrovert over here, but luckily I had lots of friends willing to let me crash their weeknights. The last week I even unexpectedly had dinner plans every night with different friends. Got to try some new restaurants and by the time I'd get home I was to pooped to realize I felt lonely. They were all such blessings to me while he was gone.

Also the weekend before he was back I took the Boltbus (west coast version of megabus) to Portland to hang out with my friend Kayla. Mostly we ate and shopped and had a relaxing weekend. It was fun to spend time with her and also the perfect reason to not spend the time sitting on my couch all weekend counting the hours until Joshua was home.

My neighbor even let me borrow her car to go pick him up from the airport. Super duper happy he's back but also was able to use up every ounce of time to hang out with other people I love!

Just a few photos from Portland:

 

we also watched Magic School Bus!

From a Portland Wedding

We were planning on leaving Portland Saturday night and driving home but Joshua had an ingenious stroke of spontenaity and decided to extend our stay and to explore the Columbia River Gorge on Sunday instead! It was only about a 45 minute drive and it was stunning! We didn't bring hiking clothes so we chose a hike with paved paths and only a few miles. We started at the bottom of the waterfall and hiked to the top of it. It was switchbacks all the way up which was cool because you'd turn the corner and feel the mist of the waterfall and then turn the corner again and being in the sunshine with mountains in front of you.

We had lunch on the rocks by this part of the waterfall! It was really cool to stand so close to it and just hear the water thundering over. Plus it was off the trail so we got to walk on logs to get to it, which I love doing.

It was the best end to the weekend we could have asked for!

We feel so blessed to live in a place like this and to be able to take trips like this together.

To a Portland Wedding

We drove down to Portland this weekend to go to our friend from Cincy's wedding. We hung out with him on our Thanksgiving visit to Portland and had actually met the girl while we were there, not dating yet. It was really cool then to be able to go back down for their wedding to support them.

It was also a nice way to spend the weekend with some Cincy friend's that flew in for the occassion.

of course we went back to vodoo donuts :)

 We had Friday day to ourselves and we took the light rail over to the zoo and arboretum. Ah it was so warm and sunny - it felt great to be outside!

Of course we also ate at food carts, we also ran into our friends grabbing donuts for the groomsmen which was pretty funny. We had grilled cheese from a cart and sat in the sunshine. It always feels so awesome to watch people around you working when you are vacationing!

How handsome is he!!! It was cute until we left his suit at the hotel and had realized so an hour into the drive home. But alas the suit was recovered and it was also frappy hour at Starbucks then... so we were easily contented.  :)

We spent the time with our friends enjoying the market, laying in the grass and drinking lots of coffee and beer. It was glorious!

We have a part 2 daycation we took too which I'll have pictures for soon- spoiler there's a fantastic waterfall involved

Thanksgiving in Portland.2

In true Portland hipster fashion we biked everywhere. But it was also really nice to bike because we could stop whenever we wanted and parking didn't have to be an issue. - OK fine we were being hipster :)

This is the hotel we stayed at. It was also very hipster, ha. But our wall had a mural on it orange in the carpet and a really fantastic bar and restaurant attached to it. So those were also wins.

While we were biking along the water we happened upon a Saturday Market. They had tons of food and homeade goodies. We, of course, ended up getting more pho. Something about it's spicy warm goodness that screams fall.

We also got to meet up with a friend from Cincy while we were there. John has been living in Portland, we called him up and all met up at a bar with his friend Amy. We played euchre all night! GIRLS WON! Euchre is Midwest card game and John had been dying to play it. I am so thankful for meeting up with them. We had fun conversations, talked about memories, and laughed a whole whole lot. When we left the older bartender said he couldn't get over how funny we thought playing cards was. He said we were so loud and laughing so hard that he couldn't help but smile. So I told him what we were playing and he then told me he knew it- he was from Cincinnati! How fun and cool is that!

This Thanksgiving I was thankful for random moments and meetings like that. Our weekend was filled with companionship even if it was 2 hours next to a random guy at a bar eating turkey. We missed our families but it really felt like we were surrounded by one anyways, even if they were temporary.

Plus we really loved going on vacation together. Next we're planning a camping trip!

When we got home hubs made me eggs in a basket and bacon and we watched How I Met Your Mother all afternoon!

Part 1 here

Thanksgiving in Portland.1

We took our first family vacation together! We went to Portland, OR for Thanksgiving and it rocked. We mostly played it pretty chill, skipped the Black Friday shopping, and lounged around our hotel for lunch (in our defense they have amazing food, amazing! and it is in a cute log cabin looking place)

For Thanksgiving dinner we found a bar that was serving free dinner! But it turned out so much better than that- it was a smoked turkey, homeade stuffing and pies and potatoes yummmmm

They had outside heaters so we hung out on the patio all night watching football and making new friends. It felt perfect.

O and of course we watched some of the James Bond marathon earlier in the day- a MUST

Then the next day we hit the town. One of our new Portland friends said it is the place old people go to retire. Which felt so true, it was relaxed and everyone wasn't in a hurry and there was tons of good food!

We had to of course go to Voodoo donuts and got the voodoo jelly man, bacon maple, and sprinkle donuts

Then when we were wondering around we accidentally found my work's other office in Portland

Portland is overflowing with food trucks! The donwtown has 3 blocks, I said Blocks soley dedicated to them. They are in a corral and it is amazing.
It was a little chilly so we grabbed pho and it was beyond amazingly tasty

Also found a really hipster coffee shop to warm up in :) and of course we bike there, hehe

Our hotel also had chalkboard doors so, not feeling very creative, we drew turkey hands and cowboys over the peephole :)

There's a part 2 here