Birthday trip to Portland

Tuesday, October 28, 2014


Our Portland trip was a dream. It was exactly what I wanted for my birthday, and I'm so happy that we made it happen. I had been wanting to visit Portland for years, but with four kids it's so hard to get away and get babysitting lined up, so this trip didn't happen for a long time. It was perfect that it worked out for my 30th birthday! We only spent two full days there (and one in Seattle afterwards too) and there are so many things I really wanted to do but there was just no time for them. Good thing we live in the next state over, so hopefully a trip back to finish up my list will happen soon. ;) One thing I didn't want was a rushed and stressful trip trying to squeeze everything in, which is no fun at all, so we just took everything in at our own pace. It was pretty perfect. 


Portland is a beautiful city, and I'm a city girl at heart, so I was kind of blissed out the whole time. Everything is so green and lush there, and there are so many pretty buildings to look at and things to do. I'm sure if I lived there I would get tired of the rain it's known for, but there was only sun for us! I actually wanted cooler temps to get a break from our hot Idaho summer, but Portland was experiencing unusually high temps that week--go figure.


My birthday wish--to stay at the Ace Hotel. I know, it's pretty cliched in blogland and on Instagram now, and I think I've seen the Palm Springs Ace more than any of the others, but it doesn't matter to me--it was still awesome experiencing it firsthand.


There's a sink and mirror in every room, but there's only one shared bathroom per floor that has a shower and toilet. There are pricier rooms with their own bathroom, but I'm not too high maintenance (or so I like to think), so this was just fine with me. It's an adventure, right? ;) We only had to wait a bit in the morning to be able to shower, and Bogdan actually brought me a Stumptown coffee and dessert from the lobby downstairs while I waited, so I didn't mind it at all. Nope, not at all. I could do that kind of waiting every morning! And there was never any line that we could see during the time we were there, so it worked out just fine. I noticed people coming down from other floors to use our bathroom, so there's always that option.


The lobby is the coolest part, probably. I just wanted to hang out there for hours, though we didn't exactly have time for that. We used the photo booth down there and bought some Stumptown coffee to take home from their coffee shop in the lobby. There's also a cool, smaller sitting area on the second floor that I never got a picture of.


Bogdan drinking his tiny cup of coffee while waiting for a table at Broder. We refilled those little cups many, many times before we got our table!


And there's the deliciousness we were waiting for. Everything was so good, and I love that there are so many restaurants in Portland that use healthy ingredients to make delicious food. I wish we had more of that in Boise.


This is how he thanks me for an ice cream date--with a fist. Ha! We got to try a few fun flavors at Salt and Straw, but the pear and blue cheese was the best, hands down. With flavors like Stumptown coffee and Burnside bourbon, honey balsamic strawberry and black pepper, it was a hard decision, but I am happy to report we committed to a couple flavors and got out of there alive. I seriously wanted to try them all.

I'm splitting my Portland pictures up into two posts because there are just too many pictures for one post. Coming up is a hike we did on my birthday, and of course dinner out that evening.

xoxo,
Tanya

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