Portland baby!

A couple months back, I had the opportunity to go to Portland, OR baby! It was amazing, I have been telling people I wanted to retire there for years...and I've actually never been there until recently... to visit my great bro Russell. Yes, I still want to retire there and I LOVED it! It was super bueno, omg, loved every bit!-now I just need to take my hubber with me next time. SO let's see....what did I do? Well I will start out by saying that it was a semi last minute planned trip if that even makes sense, but I had been wanting to visit Russell for a while now since he's lived there almost a year, and then there's the whole fact that I'm obsessed with Portland. I guess I'll just let the pics do the explaining since there were some amazing, weird, and beautiful places we went to and I loved them all. OH-also Russell and I watch the most hilarious show (other than 30 Rock)-well, he has seen it much more than I have but it's called "Portlandia," and it pretty much makes fun of Portland and how weird it is-oh so hilar..so a lot of the places that Portlandia films are places we tried to visit...I think we did pretty good :)

First of all, to show how weird Portland is, this is a guy with a peekachoo backpack that pretty much rocked our sox off, it was tooooo awesome...and weird... and funny

This is the famous Voodoo Doughnuts.

Low how amazingly awesome these doughnuts are!! Captain crunch, bubble gum, fruit loops?!

I'm not going to talk about the "love me" one b/c it's a little innaprop, but I have to admit, it did make me laugh

Yep, I thought every single one we got was delectable-vood doo, cap'n crunch, and my fav-the bacon maple! (real bacon!)

I thought I looked good in this pic so I wanted to post it even though there's pretty much an identical pic above, minus the weird face

Russell-stop throwing up on the doughnuts!

See, the signs don't lie...and yes, we acted weird for the pic-classic

White Stag sign baby! This is definitely famous to Portland-AND it's in the Portlandia show

This is "Portlandia" herself, the Goddess herself that Portland names its city after :)

She is rather a quite large woman

One of the things I love and think is funny about Portland is that they're sooo good about recycling! All the states should be like them but they're not :( However, I do admit, it was hard at times just to find something that said "trash" as you can tell above

Famous Portland sign...I think..maybe not?

Oh and I opened up my own hotel/cafe while I was there!

Look at this cool random bike sculpture! Totally random but love it! Real bikes and all

hi bikes

One thing I love about my hotel is that it's literally in the middle of the street! It's almost like a center island.

This was a very pretty church we went to -it's really old

I decided to put in a pizza place as well :) Geez Portland loves my name!

For lunch on Saturday, we went to "Off the Griddle" Russell had heard that the food carts are big down there so we decided to try em out. The one we specifically went to was ALL vegan, which I had never tried before! It was actually pretty good-I think I got the bluecheeseburger, Russell-bacon cheeseburger, mom-some omelet burger...anyway, they were all pretty good-I liked Russell's and mine the best

That afternoon we went to the Pittock Mansion-it's this beautiful mansion that sits up above Portland so you can see the whole city from their backyard. It use to be owned by a wealthy businessman that owned that Portland newspaper-we took an awesome tour throughout and enjoyed looking at the grounds and view out back

look at that view!

Everthing was mainly kept in good condition and preserved so people can see it today

Mr. Pittock loved spending money on the details on his home as you can tell here

I received special treatment and was able to play on the piano that I think is an original to the family that lived there-pretty snazzy

Classic stairway shot

This is a view from the backyard-it's definitely a mansion

another view :)

This was a view we took a pic of from our little transfer gondola or whatever it's called, way fun even if it was only 3 minutes

This is mom and I traveling inside it! It was like going on a weak ride at Disney

This is what it looked like

A view from the hospital where the gondola took us

Mom thought this would be an amazing shot

This is another piano i played on...jk, eww, this was in someone's front yard!

That night we went to a sushi place that we waited 2 HOURS in line for! Crazy and ridic, eh? Yea, that's what I said, but then we saw how big the freakin sushi was and it was pretty good for the price paid-7 or 8 bucks for that big plate of sushi!! I don't think I would wait in line for 2 hours again though...not worth 2 hours of my presh time in Port

We had so much leftovers, it was crazy

Nope..we couldn't fit them in our mouths..not possible

On Sunday we went to all these beautiful falls! I love Portland! I think we went to 3 or 4 different ones and they were all unique and beautiful in their own ways. The nature in Portland is phenomenal.

This is the second biggest falls next to Niagra in the USA!

gorg, eh?

This is one we actually hiked..well..I wouldn't say hiked, more like strolled to the bridge at the top of the picture, you can hike to the top which I wanted to do but I did not bring the shoes for that, so maybe next time?

This is when we "hiked" to the bridge-so beautiful

We went to the very top of the mountain, maybe large hill?-and this was the view from above-we were really close to all the waterfalls, just further up

This is a little shrine/something that you can hold parties at probably for a lot of money, that was right next to where we took pics of the view

yep..that's my mom, I got my lips from her

look at that view!

On Sunday night, we went to Ryan and Maria's for dinner after meeting up with them at one of the cool waterfalls. It was great to see them and play a little with their 3 darling boys. We talked a lot afterward-some about grandma and how wonderful she was. The next day...

So this is where I will retire...ha, yeah right, i'm sure these homes go for millions considering they're right one the beach...

The beach there was beautiful, we heard it just gets packed in the month of August-usually the only month that's warm enough to go to the beach

It was still a blistery day for the beach

We had the opportunity to go to the Tillamook Cheese Factory! OMG I LOVE their cheese--soooo delish, probably one of my fav. American brands. Especially the extra sharp white cheddar, if you ever get a chance-that is a must taste right there!

I dressed up as a cow

Look at them hard little workers!

We did get to "drive" the bus-so cute! After we went through the factory, we had the chance to sample all these yummy cheeses they had and then we got their delish ice cream they make right there in the factory-oooh so fresh and yummy!

Right after the Tillamook factory, we raced back to Portland (since Tillamook is about an hour, hour and half away) because mom and I had a plane to catch and Russell was going to have us take the shuttle since traffic can be VERY during midday in Portland. However, we decided after speeding back that Russell would take us to the airport instead and it worked out really well. Overall the trip was just amazing and I thank Russell for making that happen! He was the best tour guide and really had some great ideas for places we could go. I still want to go back since there was still SO much more we could have seen and hiked. Anyway, thanks Russell! Love ya! Now I just need to take bunner there and that would be tre bon.

Other news--um...we went to NYC last weekend-pics to come! SO fun! Um...I got a new job! :) I really am going to miss my old job and the people that I worked with-ahhh! I just loved them all! I was able to spend time my friend's baby that she brought to work with her almost everyday and I will miss that sweet little babe oh so dearly-but I definitely hope to see her soon-Such amazing people! I just needed something full-time so I will start working at Capital One on Monday! I'll be a funding analyst. Also, Amy had her babe! And little Em is OH so cute-just can't wait to meet her! Hunger Games is coming out tomorrow and I'm waaaaay excited since I loved the books...other news..we hope to buy a house this year!! Yay! Other news....I'm not sure, can't remember anything else for now so once i remember I'll put that in the next blog update or you can remind me :)