Portland - The Last Hoo-Rah

Dave and I wanted to take one last road trip together, just the two of us, before our sweet little baby comes. We are kind of travel junkies, and are very sad to be giving up the "up and go"ness that not having any kids gives you. So - we decided to drive to Portland to visit our friends Landon and  Hannah. 

We drove to Boise the first night since Dave still had to work that day. He, of course, had looked up a place to eat that was on the TV show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. He was so excited to eat at the Westside Drive In, and it didn't disappoint. It was delicious. We were tempted to try the loaded baked potato (a baked potato loaded with ice cream), but by the time we were finished with our meal, we were stuffed. 

Dave loved how 50's-ish it looked

The next morning, we drove the rest of the way to Portland. We rented Uncle Tom's Cabin from the library on CD and listened to it throughout our drive. It was so fun to just be together in the car, being "trapped" so to speak, with Dave, and having such nice down time together. We had to stop a few more times than normal because of this pregnancy bladder of mine, but we had a great time just driving and being with each other.

Before we got to Hannah and Landon's house, we stopped at Multnomah Falls to explore a bit. It was seriously so beautiful. You can see it from the highway as you drive by, but it's so much cooler if you stop and really take a look at it for a while. 

Everything in Oregon is SOOOO green!!

Seeing all of the green made Dave and I think of a song I used to teach my 1st graders around St. Patrick's Day and made Dave want to do a jig. His jig is a little lack-luster though, because there were a lot of people around staring at us like we were crazy people. So - not his best jig, but still pretty funny. 

We were SO excited to finally get to Hannah and Landon's house. We miss them like crazy since they live so far away, and were so anxious to finally get there and to see them. We had SOO much fun together. We had lots of adventures together, and it was just so nice to spend so much time hanging out with them. 

We went to Powell's bookstore (I could LIVE here). The boys checked out some goosebumps books for nostalgia's sake, and I, of course, bought some books for the baby. 

We ate at the Salt 'n Straw, an ice cream shop which was SO tasty. It was very "Portland" in that all of the ingredients were natural and organic. The sample spoons they had us use were metal, even, so they could re-wash them and not use plastic. They had some pretty crazy flavors there too. For example, you could choose mint leaves with sea urchins meringues, loaded baked potato, or hawaiian pb & j. Dave, of course, chose an eccentric one - hawaiian pb & j. He said it was one of the best ice creams he's ever had. I guess there is something to be said for the all natural ingredients - it was so so so good!

We love these two!!!

The next day we went sailing. We've only been to Portland once before, but last time we came Landon's new hobby was flying. This time it was sailing. We joked about how we can't wait to see what the next hobby will be - hopefully some form of cool transportation. But when I talk about sailing, I mean, literal sailing. Like, with the wind only. They are part of a sailing club, so we got to go with them on their boat, and we got to help with everything. We learned lots of sailing terms like jib, sheet, boom, jibe, tack, and spinnaker - it totally felt like we learned a different language. We just felt so lucky that Landon knows how to sail and was willing to take us along for the journey. Dave made a sailing playlist on his iPod (Styx - Come Sail Away, Enya - Caribbean Blue, Pocahontas - Just Around the Riverbend, etc.), and we just calmly sailed along the Colombia River. It was definitely the highlight of the journey for us, and we had so much fun learning about something we previously knew nothing about.

Here are the boys making sure the sails are ready

We LOVED sailing! 

This video is my favorite one. We had to tack a lot, which we learned means to turn the direction of the boat. Every time you tack, you have to switch the sails a bit, and so I took a video of one time we tacked. You'll be able to hear a little bit of the sailing language, but don't pay too close attention to Dave's sailing language, because I don't think it was all the way correct, especially the "ahoy" at the end, but it was so cute.  :)

Dave got to drive the boat for a little bit. He was too nervous about being the driver for long though, and quickly surrendered to Landon.

We are just buddies. 

We were pretty exhausted after a long, hot day of sailing, so we spent the evening just relaxing at their house. The boys played nintendo while Hannah and I made dinner, and they were so so funny. They played Super Smash Brothers and were getting really into it. I tried to catch their intensity on video, but I had to pretend I was looking at pictures instead of filming, or it wouldn't have been candid. I wish I could have captured more of their screaming, but their intense faces will have to be good enough.

I've rarely seen two people more focused on something!

We spent the evening just hanging out together - playing games, eating yummy treats, and watching Sherlock. It was nice to be able to relax a bit.

Our favorite game - killer bunnies!

Yes, all of these cards make sense to us. :)

Hannah was so excited that she ended up with the magic carrot, Abu. 

The next morning we went to Portland's Rose Garden. The boys weren't too thrilled about going, but Hannah and I were, and the roses were BEAUTIFUL and there were a million of them.

See what I mean?? Beautiful!

Hannah, catching a whiff of the flowers. :)

Apparently there are queens of the rose garden every year, and Queen Hannah was the one this year. We HAD to get a picture, and then we searched for a Queen Jennifer, and wal-lah! We found one!

\

Dave was trying to do something different for the pictures, and thought a dip would be fun. I'm not the most graceful person in the world, especially with a pregnant belly. So - there was pretty much no dip, but a lot of funny pictures trying.

Hannah mentioned to us that every time she comes to the Rose Garden she gets the urge to sing "Painting The Roses Red" from Alice in Wonderland. Well, that got Dave thinking, and so we had to paint the roses red. It's not quite as good as the song from the movie, but we sure had fun doing it.

Just a little ways away from the Rose Garden was a holocaust memorial that we visited for Dave. He loved it!

After we saw the Rose Garden, we headed to downtown Portland to check out Saturday Market and VooDoo Donuts, and just soak in a little more of Portland.

Saturday Market was filled with great people watching and weird organic things people were selling. It was awesome!

The line for VooDoo donuts would have taken us 50 minutes to wait in, so we said no way. We snapped a picture and left. They had some pretty cool looking donuts though - I saw a Captain Crunch donut, a Froot Loops donut, a maple bacon donut, and an Oreo donut.

We spent the rest of our time just relaxing at home and playing games. We played Power Grid (which we're already anxious to play again), True Colors, Scattergories, and Killer Bunnies, of course. We had so much fun spending time with them, and we were so sad to leave the next morning. We hate that we live so far away from each other and so can only see each other once in awhile. They were so nice to take care of us for a few days, and we are already trying to plan another time to get together. Our drive home was LONG (we did it all in one day), but so great to be able to just spend that time together, just the two of us. I love road trips with Dave, and this one was the perfect last hoo-rah before this baby of ours comes. Thanks to Hannah and Landon for giving us an excuse to get away for the weekend, and for all of the fun adventures we had. Here's to many more adventures ahead! Ahoy! :)