Birthday Weekend

We used Andy's birthday as an excuse to finally go up to Portland to explore.  We had a great weekend and loved Portland.  Here are some highlights...

We started the weekend off with a birthday dinner at Deschutes Brewery.  The food was good, and I hear the beer was too.  Andy's favorite part, however, was the discovery of Sweet Aardvark's Aardvark Habanero Sauce.

After dinner we walked just a few blocks to hit Powell's City of Books.  This place is 68,000 square feet and has 9 rooms full of new and used books.  We spent a couple hours in there and could have spent much longer.  We'll definitely be going back!



On Saturday we got up and went to the Portland Japanese Gardens.  They are GORGEOUS.  They claim to be the most beautiful Japanese gardens outside of Japan and I can see why they get the bragging rights.

After the gardens, we headed to the Portland Saturday Market.  There are all kinds of local artists (including a lady who makes animal shaped whistles) selling just about anything you can imagine (see previous comment about the whistles).  Andy was impressed with the diverse selection of food and my adventurous eater tried the Himalayan food stand. 

 I'm not sure what all of that is, but according to Andy, it was "not too shabby" but noted that it would have been even tastier with the Aardvark sauce.

       Saturday evening left us time to visit two more breweries. 

We finished the weekend off with a stop at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  The highlight of the museum is the real (although retired) submarine.  We got to tour the sub and Andy (along with everyone under 10 on the tour) even tried out the bunks.  The tour was really interesting!

In other news, our life is pretty boring.  We're both working a lot and still trying to find the perfect house.  We put an offer on one a week ago and the when the seller's counter offer came back to us, we decided to forget it.  The search continues.  

Fall and the rain have arrived in Oregon.  So far, the rain is very intermittent and it usually clears off for a few hours each day and we get some sunshine.  We'll see how that changes as we get farther into fall and winter.  So far, we're surviving just fine!  I'm sure our opinion will be different when it's still raining in March.  :)