Portland.

When we first got to Seattle, we met up with one of Justin’s fraternity brothers, Davey, and his wife Kristen. They threw out the idea of going to Portland for a weekend, and we jumped at the offer. Last Friday afternoon, we hopped in the car and started the 3 hr. trek to the city. It was supposed to be a cold and rainy weekend, but we had tons of things planned to keep us dry :).

Voodoo Doughnuts

While we did check into our hotel and eat dinner first, we went to VooDoo Doughnuts pretty much as soon as we had a chance. We were pretty dang excited to head to this place that was known for their crazy topped doughnuts. Anywhere you could get Coco Puffs thrown on top of a doughnut, well, it would have been insane not to go!

VooDoo Doughnuts

The place is really interesting in and of itself, but that was all part of the fun. Check out the funny signs above. Hilarious!

Yep, we’re happy campers.

On Saturday morning we headed to a local outdoor market that Kristen had heard about. It was a little drizzly and cold (hence the lack of good pictures), but we had fun walking around. Kristen and Davey wanted to head to an Art Museum and we weren’t really feeling it, so we split up and agreed to meet up for lunch. It’s always awesome traveling with people who are laid back about schedules :).

Saturday Market

While they headed to a cultured activity, we….well, we headed to a bar. Yep, a bar. Portland is known for their beers and Justin was dying to give the local breweries his business. We decided to head to Deschutes.

Deschutes Brewery

The great thing about places that make their own beer is that they really want you to try what they have to offer. It’s not about getting drunk, it’s about enjoying the craftsman ship of the beers. Seriously. Most places offer a sampler which is a great way to see what you like.

Deschutes Sampler. Isn’t it cute??

I’m not a beer drinker at all. However, we realized that weekend that I had a weird talent. I can taste a beer, and tell Justin if he’s going to like it. I can also rank it according to other beers. Out of the 6 beers he tried, I ranked them all correctly! Weird ability, but it makes trying beers more fun. Basically, the more I hate it, the more I know Justin will love it, hehe.

After beer tasting, we met up with Davey and Kristen for lunch. We found this really cute Jewish deli (shout-out to my Chicago family!!). The food was incredible but holy cow were we stuffed afterwards!

Davey and Kristen at lunch.

The sandwiches were huge!

With a lunch like that, we needed to walk it off. Kristen had seen a thrift store a few blocks away that she wanted to visit. It was such a fun place to duck out of the rain and laugh at all the crazy outfits!

The thrift store.

Looking through all the random shirts.

Of course Justin found a new friend.

The rest of the day we walked around town and tried very unsuccessfully to find a pizza place for dinner. Most of the restaurants we saw closed at 8pm on a Saturday! So weird. We grabbed dinner elsewhere and headed back to crash at the hotel. On Sunday, Davey drove us to a gorgeous park up on a huge hill. It seriously looked like it belonged in the English countryside.

Hilltop park in Portland.

As soon as we got there, we saw this incredible rainbow. How stunning?! I don’t care how many times I see a rainbow, I always feel like it’s a special little surprise God designed just for me…and all the other people who see it :).

Can you see the rainbow?

View of the city.

Jumping shots!

Davey’s face is hilarious!

And of course we had to make one more run to Voodoo Doughnuts before we left town….hmmm maybe it was more like our 3rd visit. Don’t judge!

Awesomeness.

We also went to this amazing biscuit place for lunch. Kristen is from North Carolina and so when she saw that this place was run by two guys from NC, she knew we had to go. She wasn’t wrong at all. This place was AWESOME! (And a total heart attack on a plate.)

We managed to find a little bit of the South…

Justin and I were so ridiculously full after this meal, it was insane. We seriously couldn’t finish it all. I mean, who could?? All you need to know is that it was delicious. You MUST go there if you come to Portland.

Country ham, fried chicken and honey, and fried green tomato w/pimento cheese.

Our last stop before heading back to Seattle was this amazing waterfall. If you’re read the book, “The Shack”, it’s the waterfall they talk about in there. It’s stunning.

Amazing waterfall.

While we were there, we happened to run into TWO FRIENDS FROM ATLANTA!! They just happened to be there for the weekend visiting friends at the EXACT SAME TIME!! How strange and awesome?? We were so excited to see them!

Our friends Daniel and Julianne from Atlanta on the left!!

Well  there you have it. That was our awesome weekend in Portland. It’s a really cool city with a small town feel. It’s also pretty weird, so be forwarned before you go :). Afterall, their motto is, “Keep Portland Weird”….

Sonoma.

A couple Saturdays ago we headed out for a day trip to Sonoma. Actually, it was more like a 4 hour (not including stops) circle tour of the entire region. We started out by, of course, leaving the city. Through a rainbow. How incredibly fun and random?!

Along the way, we saw tons of cows.

Our first stop was Bodega Bay. It’s a really small fishing village along the coast. It happened to be their annual festival that day, which we found out later was a big deal, so we decided to stop. We parked, hiked our way through the tall grass, and finally made it to the entrance. That’s when we saw it would be $20 for us to enter. We only planned on staying for like 30 min, so that was too steep a price for us! We hightailed it out of there.

Instead, we headed to a restaurant down the street for some prize-winning clam chowder. It was such a cute place and the soup was delicious!

After lunch, we continued up the coast. I think we seriously have like 50 pictures of us in front of cliffs, but I never get tired of taking a picture of my cute husband though. Isn’t he dreamy??

All that walking around in sand wasn’t great for my poor shoes. By the time we were ready to leave, I had managed to collect all of this in my shoe!

A little time at the beach and we were back on the road. I’m sure you guys have heard of the “California Redwoods”. Most tourists head to Muir Glen to look at these tall beauties, but we had heard that Armstrong Grove had the same trees, but without all the people. Awesome! It really is breathtaking to see. There’s something magical about the forest. It reminded me of Fern Gulley or something. I half expected to see a fairy pop out of a tree!

We had to take a picture of the sign below. It was just weird not to...

Doesn't this look like an ape or something?

Old Mr. Jones was huge!

I adore this picture.

Nope, we didn't find a four-leaf clover.

It was so quiet and lovely here.

World's largest pinecone.

There was moss on everything.

I took this just to give an idea of scale.

After we were done admiring all the trees, we got back on the road to go to Korbel. They had a free tour/champagne tasting and you know how we love free stuff!

The tour was pretty interesting. We learned a lot of interesting things about the champagne making process. We ended up going down into a cellar that had tons and tons of bottles of champage. Well, they actually only had water in them, but we were supposed to pretend.

After the tour we go to taste the champagnes. For free? Yes, please.

And finally, we headed to the actual town of Sonoma. It was an adorable town, but unfortunately we got there right as all the cute shops and wineres were closing. Boo. We ended up walking around for a bit, and then headed to dinner. For all of you who know Justin well, you know he NEVER ate vegetables. I made a real effort the past couple months to make vegetables in a way he would like and I’m here to say we’ve had SUCCESS! He now eats salad with every meal, brussel sprouts, green beans, broccoli, carrots, cabbage….and too many more to name. I’m so proud of him!

Eating salad.

It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday and explore more of Californa. We’re going to miss this gorgeous state! On the way home, we had to stop and get a couple pictures of this gorgeous sky. Our God is a pretty amazing painter isn’t he. Take a minute today and look for the beauty God has created around you. It might not be a sunset, but I promise you it’ll be just as stunning.

Live in the Vineyard: Day 1.

After an incredible lunch at Bottega, we headed over to our hotel resort. Nice, huh? That cutie there is my husband doing his best Vanna White impression. He’s such a dork :). For those of you who haven’t heard, Justin won us an all expenses paid trip to Napa to attend a food/wine/music festival they have there. Everything we did all weekend (except Bottega) was free!!

The resort was really nice despite the super gloomy day. It rained the entire weekend by the way. Except for the day we left. Don’t you love when that happens. The building above is where most of the events were held. Luckily our room was a short walk away. Other people had to take a shuttle down the street to get to their rooms!

We also ended up getting a pretty nice room compared to some of the other winners who said their rooms were tiny. I guess that’s a perk for being one of the first people to check in!

In our rooms we found this super handy and ginormous umbrella that became our best friend for the rainy weekend. I have no clue what Justin’s doing in this picture…he’s probably telling me to stop taking his picture. He should really be used to that by now! A couple hours of wandering around the resort and we were ready for our first event…a cocktail party!

These people really knew how to throw a party. Step 1: give everyone really awesome VIP badges to make them feel special. Step 2: Invite 20+ awesome wineries to pour everyone free wine. I dare you to think of a better combo than that. And these weren’t cheap-o wines either…we’re talking wines that were $60 a bottle and up. We weren’t huge wine drinkers before, but we are now. Once you’ve had the good stuff, the two buck chuck just isn’t the same :).

See our awesome badges and full glasses of wine. We always take full advantage of anything that’s free.

While most of the people there were over 30, we managed to find a group of people our age. This is Kim. She’s awesome. By the end of the weekend there was a whole group of us. It was SO much fun to hang out with people again! We’ve haven’t seen friends since January so we were long overdue for some socialization. When it’s just us for such a long time, we get even more goofy (yes it’s possible). Good to know we can curb it around normal folks :).

After the cocktail hour it was time for the concert to start. First up was Serena Ryder. She was great. Really unique and “hippieish”. (If that’s not a real word it should be.)

Next up was VV Brown. We both loved her. I mean LOVED. Go look her up now. I can’t even describe how she sounds. Kind of old school, but with a new twist. I dunno. Just listen for yourself!

Then we had Brooke from American Idol perform. She just came by to sing one song. We didn’t even know who she was until someone told us! And yes that IS Jason Castro sitting next to her. He was just helping with that song, but his actual performance was the next night. More on him later.

Next up in the line-up was the Backstreet Boys (insert 13 yr. old girl scream here). I was always a N’SYNC fan and Justin doesn’t really care much for boy bands (big surprise), but it was still fun to see a group that was so popular when we were growing up. There final song was “I Want it That Way” and I did my fair share of dancing and singing along with the lyrics. Justin caught it all on video but I’m not sharing. It’s a wee bit too embarrassing :).

After that line-up, they gave us a short intermission complete with a Southern style late-night dinner. I’m talking fried chicken, mac-n-cheese, tea…they thought of it all. Of course, we couldn’t eat much because we were still full from lunch! And look who I happened to run into (above). That Jason Castro is SUCH a sweetie. And he just got married. To a girl he went to highschool with. Could he be more adorable?

To round out the night, Tonic came out to perform. They really did a great job closing out the night. It’s funny because even the bands were drinking wine (see pic below). In fact, he stopped after a couple songs and someone came to the stage to refill his glass! We realized at that point that we were definitely in wine country.

Before heading to bed for the night, I managed to get my pic taken with most of the backstreet boys. I have to say, I’m no fan of Nick Carter. When I asked him if I could get a picture, he told me “I guess I could turn my head”. Hmmmm. He really thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips….I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wasn’t.

This picture with Brian is probably my favorite celeb picture of all time. First off we didn’t realize we had the camera on macro mode so it’s blurry. Second, Justin took it a half a second too early and you can see by Brian’s face he wasn’t ready. Hilarious. He looks confused as to why he’s taking a pic in the first place! He was such a sweet guy though…

And lastly, Howie. Again, we had the camera on the wrong setting. Oh well. It’s not like we were planning to frame these pics :).

I managed to get a picture with the last Backstreet Boy that was there, but I’m saving that for a later post. It’s the FUNNIEST picture ever. Seriously. Even better than the confused Brian pic. After we were done tasting wine and chasing Backstreet Boys, we headed to our room where we found this little treat…

We still have no idea why we got them, but we were excited none-the-less. Perfect start to the weekend :).

Disney Part Dos: California Adventures.

(Justin’s Recap)

After an adventurous day at Disneyland we headed over to the right side of the Disney area (the parks split and Disneyland is to the left and California Adventures to the right). For those who have been to Disneyworld it is comparable to Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios). We talked to a very sweet older lady in the shop by the entrance who gave us some tips. We took her up on her advice and went and grabbed some Fast Passes for Soarin’ and then headed over to catch a stage musical of Aladdin. As you can see below, it was fantastic!

We then headed over for some Lunch. We got some Chinese food and Jennifer’s was ok, but mine was unfortunately quite disgusting. To get that taste out of our mouth we headed back over to Soarin’, which is a really fun ride that gives you the simulation of flying over various parts of California. The intro video even has one of our favorite Seinfeld characters, David Putty (played by Patrick Warburton).

Waiting in line for "Soarin".

"David Putty". Hilarious.

Then we headed to back of the park, which is set up more like a traditional theme park, complete with the boardwalk and midway games. We rode an amazing Toy Story ride that whips you around to play various shooting games. I destroyed Jennifer by around 50,000 points. :)  That was probably our favorite ride of the weekend, but it also gave a bit of a hand cramp from going crazy trying to shoot everything in sight.

I win. Of course.

After that we headed over to the park’s roller coaster. This is one of those coasters that stops and then launches the riders very quickly. Jennifer didn’t know that and was quite scared at first, but we both thought it was a very fun coaster. We then walked over to the Ferris Wheel. This Ferris Wheel is very different, as some of the gondolas are on these bands so that they slide as the wheel moves around. We shared the gondola with another family and we were all quite terrified of the ride.

Notice how the gondolas move around the bands...terrifying.

We also rode a few “kiddy” rides because we are both kids inside. We finished up the day with my obligatory viewing of the Muppets 3D show. Most people who know me know I have quite an affinity for the Muppets, and so not seeing this show was not an option even though we’ve seen it several times in Disneyworld.

Awkward picture from "A Bug's Life" show.

Ropes course. Jennifer was terrified.

We enjoyed the park a lot and then headed to Downtown Disney for dinner at a New Orleans style cafe. The food was ok, but the atmosphere around Downtown Disney was really fun. One guy was playing the blues and he could play a mean guitar so we watched him for a few minutes before heading back home. We were both exhausted and even though Disneyland isn’t as great as Disneyland, a weekend in Disney is always a great time for those who want to still feel like they are kids (or believe that they still are).

Downtown Disney

Awesome guitar player.

– Justin

Disneyland: Day 1.

A couple weekends ago we got to go to Disneyland. We were thrilled, excited, BEYOND happy to get to go. We went do Disneyworld for our one year anniversary a couple years ago and it was seriously the best trip we had ever been on. There is something magical about Disney…cheesy I know, but true. They do such a good job of making you feel like you’re in a special place. A place where diets go out the window, you don’t mind waiting in long lines that you would normally despise, and above all you can really feel like a kid again.

In Disneyland, there are two main parks: Disneyland Park and California Adventures. The first is basically exactly the same as Magic Kingdom, and the latter is similar to Hollywood Studios, with Epcot’s “Soarin” ride thrown in the mix. We decided to go to Disneyland Park for our first day.

When you first walk in the park, it seems really similar to Magic Kingdom…and then you see it. “Cinderella’s Castle”. Bummer with a capital “B”. The castle is really tiny! We had been forewarned, however, so we weren’t too surprised. The rest of the park has almost all of the same rides as Disneyworld. It reminded us of Disneyworld’s kid sister :). We had a blast riding “Pirates of the Carribean”, the “Buzz Lightyear” ride, the teacups, “Space Mountain”, and all the other fun rides they had!.We seriously walked the park about 10 times over by the time we left!

Thunder Mountain Railroad

Random Michael Jackson 3D movie.

"It's a Small World" ride.

My favorite and Justin's least favorite: the teacups!

Tomorrowland

Buzz Lightyear ride.

Justin’s favorite part of the day was by far “Space Mountain”, and not just because it’s a fun ride. I have this funny thing I do where I make little noises when I ride roller coasters. Not really screams…more like yelps. This rollercoaster had several little bumps along the way that had me yelping/yelling like crazy. Justin was laughing so hard he could barely breathe by the time we got off! The picture Disney took says it all…

My favorite part of the day was definitely the fireworks show at the end of the night. I adore fireworks. There is something so romantic about them. They did a wonderful job closing the night with a fun mix of movie clips, dancing, and fireworks. Perfect end to a wonderful day!

While we did have a great time, our honest opinion of the Disneyland Park is that it’s not a destination vacation. If you live in the area or will be in the area, it’s worth a stop. We were only at Disney for two days and felt like we saw everything there was to see. Definitely not a place to vacation for a week. We also noticed that the service and quality of the park were very different than Disneyworld. We felt like we were visiting a Six Flags more so than a Disney park. For us, there was no comparison to Disneyworld. We know it came later, but Disneyworld will always be the real thing to us :).