Place of my birth (day 2)

Day 2 in Portland started with a beautiful walk down to the Williamette River and to the Portland Saturday Market. We ate fruit and got a breakfast crepe and walked around all the booths. I love craft markets. I bought a t-shirt, ring, purse and even some chocolate. Brian was a little bit better with his money, he didn't buy anything.
We also stopped by Voodoo Doughnuts. This place is doughnut heaven. Doughnut combinations only your 2nd grader mind could dream of, yet so delicious. We got the Voodoo Doll, Bacon Maple Bar (yes this one was mine), Mango Tango, and The Loop. Yummy.

We stood in line for 30 minutes for doughnuts...we are nuts

Sugar dreams

Famous pink box

Voodoo doll, stake included

Bacon love
 (yes I am the girl that like bacon chocolate too)

I think I made one like this when I was little

With our stomachs full of sugar we hopped into the car and headed to Columbia River Gorge and Multnomah Falls. I loved it. The area is so beautiful. We hiked the mile and quarter to the top of the falls and explored a little more before we had to go to the airport. Next trip we will play in the Gorge area more.

Just in case you needed a count-down

Beautiful scenes

11 of 11 (sorry for scratches)

Place of my birth (day 1 - part 2)

Oops I forgot a crucial part of day one of our trip. See remember when I said I was born in Portland and we lived in Lake Oswego until I was four. Well, my sister and her crazy memory remembers the address of our house.  So what is a trip to the place of your birth if you don't go see your house.
Here she is folks....my house. I bet the neighbors thought it was weird I was standing in the street taking photos.

And I don't remember it at all. I have a picture of me in front of the garage, but for some reason I remember it being on the opposite side of the house. Does this mean I can't claim being from Oregon if I don't remember it?

Place of my birth (day 1)

A conversation about places we had never visited one night turned into booking plane tickets and a hotel the next. Brian and I jumped on a plane last Thursday and headed to Portland. Now I can't completely say I have never been to Portland. I was actually born in Portland. My family lived in Lake Oswego until I was 4 when we moved to Utah. So technically I have been to Portland, but just not when I could remember.
The trip started out great with a great flight. We got bumped to FIRST CLASS. I have never flown first class. There is so much room in those chairs.

Here we are enjoying first class

Our first order of business in Portland...food. Breakfast was Crunchy French Toast and Salomon Hash at Mother's Bistro & Bar. Oh My Goodness! I could live on this and nothing else for the rest of my life. After breakfast we walked over to the Portlandia statue. Don't get confused with the TV show. The Portlandia statue is a huge copper statue that crouches down from atop the Michael Graves Portland Building. It was actually very beautiful.

Hello pretty lady

I think she is asking for a bite of their sandwich

And of course after breakfast we had to go to Powell Book store. Where we bought a few books including a travel book so we plan more trips.

As we walked the streets we discovered a really interesting feature about Portland. There are little cities of food carts. They were every few blocks and there would be an entire block of cart vendors.

Early in the morning so they weren't open yet.

We ended our first day in Portland with walk through the International Rose Test Garden, which came highly recommended. Too bad there were only a few blooms.

Rose Garden

Smelling the only blooms

Views of Portland 

Tall walls of foliage

Brian checking out the rose facts

Oh and did I mention that Brian has friends in Portland. We went to this really cool restaurant in an old high school; McMenamins. Day 1 was perfect.

Happy Birthday To ME! (Cali trip)

I am seating here trying to work on my photo final, realizing that I still have tons of pictures from my semester to post and also realizing that I have this post started and never finished for my California trip. So here goes...
I wanted to do something fun for my birthday this year, so what better way to celebrate then a road trip. My best friend Erika just moved to Mountain View in California to work for 3 months. I flew in to California for a little weekend bday trip.

1. Seeing Erika. I love this girl. She is truly a kindred spirit. We have a lot of fun together. We can switch topics 20 times in a conversation, yet always come back to where we left off. Everyone needs a friend like Erika.
2. Farmer's Market. I love just spending the day at the farmer's market and although here is Salt Lake we only get a few months of it, in Cali they have it almost year around. Reason to love California I'd say. I purchase some banana bread (I'm obsessed as Erika knows very well), strawberries, orange and raspberry sugared flavored almonds, and red potatoes (of which we made the most excellent Sunday dinner with).



Love the flowers at the market



Everyone is enjoying their Saturday morning



Yummy

3. Nature. We spent time in Golden Gate Park and taking a stroll around the "dish" (a hill nicknamed after the large satellite dishes living there).



At Golden Gate Park



My mom is a California girl, I took pictures of the palm trees cause they make her feel like home



Conservatory of Flowers



The DISH



You can see for miles on the dish

4. Stanford Theater. This was amazing. It was a fully restored movie theater where we watch "Lassie Come Home" the first Lassie movie. After which and old movie theater organ rose out of the stage and a talented organist began to dazzle us with classic movie tunes. This was the best suggestion I got for our trip. 



Seriously cool

5. Stanford Campus. Wow! It is beautiful. The Memorial Church is so pretty.

6. "Rock of Ages." We decided to splurge for tickets to see this Broadway musical. The ticket salesman reminded us when we bought the tickets that the show would be a little racy. I figured we must look very innocent which made me giggle (little does he know). The show...hilarious. Not as risk-ay as the gentleman made me believe. Great classic rock and 80s tunes with a entertaining and very talented cast.
7. Countless hours of talking. I'll say it again, everyone needs a friend like Erika.
8. Other random things...

My first real job was at a Boston Market.
They aren't in UT anymore so whenever I find one I have to go
Order the Chicken Carver and get extra sauce

Cool used book store