Weekend Away...

This past weekend was PERFECT!  I took my best friend Wendi on a "girls weekend" to Portland to celebrate a milestone birthday.  We ate, and shopped, and ate, and shopped, and ate some more (and my scale and bank statement prove it!).  What she didn't know - and came to find out - was the culmination of the weekend was a surprise birthday party for her!  She was totally and truly shocked, which was awesome.  And she felt completely loved and blessed by her friends - which was even better than the surprise...

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Let's start at the beginning.

Friday, 8:30 am, I pick up Wendi and we head to our favorite donut shop, Frost.  I had a coupon - buy 2, get 1 free.  So I had an old fashioned chocolate, Wendi had a blueberry pancake, and then we split the bacon maple bar.  Mmmmmmmm...

Next we hit the road.  We were headed to Portland, Oregon, but made one quick stop in Centralia.  Now, I'm a pretty good driver, but a TERRIBLE parker.  And on this trip I got to practice parallel parking a LOT, and most of the time it was in the rain, on busy downtown streets.  But, thanks to Wendi's expert tutelage I perfectly parked not once, not twice, but THREE times.  I'm so proud.  :)  Here's a shot of my first "success".

The first antique store we stopped at in Centralia was a bust.  But the second was a GOLDMINE!  (It's called Painted Lady).  Look how adorable their checkout area is!  We saw a lot of trellises made from doors/windows and twinkle lights on this trip.  So pretty!

This was my score - The window frame and the white lattice screen behind me!  They are going to be awesome for the Edmond's Summer Market.

We quickly got back on the road, and made it to Portland by mid-afternoon.  We stayed at the Kennedy School - a McMenamins hotel named the "quirkiest hotel of 2010".  It was incredible, and boasted a movie theater, heated soaking pool, restaurant, 6-7 pubs, and brewery.  But the coolest part are the guest rooms, which are actual classrooms from this 1915 elementary school.  

This was one of the corners of our room.  The original chalkboards lifted up to reveal coat rack, closet, and Murphy bed.

After checking in to the hotel, we ventured back out for more shopping.  We stopped at Monticello - the most amazing antique shop either of us had EVER been.

Saw cool pennants like this everywhere - more on this tomorrow...

We found treasures galore, and some of them even got to come home with us...

...alas, some of them did not.  I found this little 10 foot (or more?) wonder - complete with twinkle lights.  But at $4200 I don't think Dave would have been too happy with me bringing it home.  And our neighbors probably wouldn't be thrilled with it sitting in our yard either.  Sigh....

After antiquing for a few hours, we decided we needed a fiber fix.  We made our way to Twisted - and if you read my blog regularly, you'll know that this is my "most favoritest, all around best, super wonderfullest" yarn store of all time.  It was so great to be there in person again.

...and we both found a few treats we couldn't live without.

Of course we were starving after that.  So we made our way to East India Co. for one of the best Indian meals I've ever had in my life.

Then we made our way back to the hotel and crashed.  Saturday was just as packed.  We started the morning a bit more healthy than Friday - with Oatmeal from Starbucks instead of donuts.

Then we found the "Goodwill SUPERSTORE" - it was gigantuan.  We actually wondered if this place sold groceries or appliances it was so big (they don't).  But it was clean, and extremely well organized (we're talking kitchen wares and ceramics organized by item AND color).

From there we found the Sellwood district, which is a definite can't miss destination for antique and boutique lovers.  Our favorite shop was Tilde, which featured items created by local artisans.  Everything was incredibly unique and VERY cool.  We both fell in love with the featured artist's work.  Her name is Trish Grantham, and she does watercolor/acrylic paintings over pages taken from antique Japanese books.  Then she pours resin over the piece to make it shiny.  The finished pieces are amazing.  I wanted to take all of them home with me!  (But had to settle for a few prints, for now).

We also ate lunch at Jade Teahouse and Patisserie.  WOW.  Amazing.  Really, there are no words to describe how awesome the food was here, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The menu.

My coconut rice noodle soup (with shrimp, crunchy veggies, and shredded chicken):

chocolate mudslide cookie with sea salt for dessert (yes I make that goofy face a LOT):

Wendi's salad and truffle oil fries with S'mores cookie:

Thoroughly filled to the brim, it was time for more shopping!  We made our way to the Mississippi district on the advice of the Tilde shop owner.  It was kooky, and silly, and very fun.  We had hoped to make it to the Portland Saturday Market as well as Voodoo Donuts too - but ran out of time.

We got back in the car, and headed for home.  I had told Wendi that we were meeting our husbands and kids for dinner, and had cooked up an elaborate scheme to make a quick pit stop at a friend's house (for a computer part for Dave).  What was actually waiting at the pit stop was a house full of Wendi's family and friends (over 50 people!).  She was beyond surprised - and was a little mad at me for lying and not making her dress better.  But in the end we all had a blast.  It was the perfect weekend!

Portland Get-Away

Last weekend Dave and I made a quick trip down to Portland.  Our main objective was to get a new bird - a canary that Dave had picked out after a week of researching breeders and varieties of canaries.

Once he decided to go with the breeder in Vancouver, I begged for him to take me to Portland (just a few miles out of the way) because my all time favorite knitting store Twisted is there.

Not only did he consent, he suggested that we go a day early so we could make it to Twisted's Knit Night!  Have I told you how much I love this man!  Sooooooo much!  :)  So Friday afternoon, we dropped Sammie off at school (Grandma would be picking her up) and took off.

This is my car knitting project - the "Twisted one-skein" club project for February - a beautiful cowl in chunky Malabrigo yarn.  YUMMY!  I got it about half done.

While we didn't have to fight traffic, we did have to turn around and go home once, stop for gas, and stop to feed Ruby along the way.  That meant we got to Twisted just a few minutes late.  (And meant that dinner would have to wait until AFTER we finished knitting).  Dave is such a good sport!

This is just a part of their sock yarn selection.  Can you see why I absolutely love this shop!?!

Dave works on his scarf:

After the knit night was over, we found a Red Robin and splurged for dinner.  We got drinks, burgers, fries AND split a sundae!  Oh so yummy... and worth every calorie!

Then we drove back downtown and found our Hotel.  We used Priceline and stayed at a pretty deluxe place for only $70!!!  It was called Hotel Lucia - and while the room was small, it was pretty swanky.  This is the view from the bathroom.  I only brought my 50mm lens so getting pictures of the whole room at once was impossible.

Here we are being silly.

I liked this shot of Ruby.  It isn't often I get her in profile.

We watched cable tv (HGTV and Food Netwark) until we fell asleep - another luxury we go without at home.  The next morning we hit our favorite coffee shop.  The concierge at the hotel suggested a local roastery, but we just couldn't do it!  The bux called to us...

Then Dave and I walked and shopped downtown Portland.  We went to a brand new spice shop, the Verizon store, and Nordy's - among other places.  Dave got a new cover for his phone:

...and I got a new pair of shoes.  Unfortunately they weren't in stock, so I have to wait for them to come in the mail.  Hence the pouty face.

We made one last stop before heading north to pick up the bird.  It wouldn't have been a mini-vacation without sushi!  This joint had great food - and each plate was only $1!!  We made it out (with tip) for $10.  Gotta love that!

Finally, this little guy was the reason for the whole trip.  Sammie wanted to name him "Sweetie" and we wanted something a little more suave and debonair - with a big band/mob boss sound to it.  So we settled on "Sweetie Valentino".   He sings beautifully and we love him already.