Portland - the land of trees and beer

This last weekend was Cameron's birthday, I tired to surprise him with a trip to Portland. I was able to keep it a surprise for a few months, but needed to tell him a few weeks before his birthday for planning purposes. It was awesome anyway!

Cameron and I have been planning on moving up to the pacific northwest for a while now. We are waiting on a few things, property value increase here, job stuff, etc. But we are totally ready to get out of this desert hot hell hole of California.

So I thought it would be fun to take a quick trip up north so Cameron could see what its like in the fall (I've lived outside of Portland so I know it is wonderful!)

It was also Greyson's first flight! The way there was pretty uneventful, he was a little whinny but not the nightmarish scene I was worried about. He even fell asleep for about 20 minutes!

We rented a house through Air BnB in Northeast Portland. The house was a super cute craftsman style, 4 bedroom, spacious downstairs. We went on the trip with another couple and their 15 month old, so we had plenty of room to spread out.

I tired to find interesting places to eat and visit while we were there, some of the places I remember loving when I lived there, and some new. The first night we went out to the Rhinelander restaurant and had some seriously amazing chicken schnitzel and lentil soup, just as great as I remember! And apparently Greyson loves lentil soup too.

The next morning we went to a breakfast joint that a few people had recommended to me, the Waffle Window. I mean shit, how can you go wrong with that!?  Nope couldn't go wrong! It was freaking fantastic, I had a savory waffle, which was covered in ham and Gruyere cheese, very sweet, so good, you didn't need much more than that. Very much like street truck food only in a permanent location.

The rest of the day was spent driving around looking at different neighborhoods around town to see which areas we could picture living in. There were several that were seriously so gorgeous. I haven't been to Oregon in the fall in such a long time I'd completely forgotten they get real seasons there. The leaves were beautiful, I really couldn't get enough of them. Didn't take many photos of our neighborhood adventures, but we did hit up one of my all time favorite restaurants while we were out: Cornelius Pass Roadhouse one of the McMenamins. The first time I went here I was only 9 years old. It was even better than the last time!

Of course we checked out a few parks, Greyson's first time in a swing, loved it!

Saturday I spent most of the day with some friends in the area, we went out to another awesome brewery called HUB, Hopworks Urban Brewery. Very kid friendly which was great because we had several with us! We also went and walked around another McMenamins - Kennedy School, which I hadn't been to before. Totally loved it, of course!

Saturday night was Cameron's "big" birthday dinner. I invited all of his family from the area and some of my friends that live in or around Portland.  The place was called the Oregon Public House, cool not for profit brewery with awesome food.

Sunday was our last day in Portland, and we still managed to make the most of it. We started out with breakfast at another recommended location, Pine State Biscuits.  And O M G, I couldn't have imagined that my Waffle Window could be outdone, but yes.... it was....

I'm not sure I've ever had a better breakfast in my life. Obviously, given the name, primarily the food is biscuit related. I had biscuits and gravy, others had breakfast sandwiches with biscuits, or even a shrimp and grits plate. Seriously just freaking amazing (and I swear it isn't because I'm pregnant! Everyone loved theirs!)

We then drove around some more neighborhoods, that, shocker, even out did the ones from earlier in the trip. Overwhelmingly awesome! The TREES!!!! The RAIN!! I JUST CANT.

Then yet ANOTHER fucking amazing restaurant, how can this be!?! This one we just drove by and said, hey that looks good, let's stop. It was called Tabor Tavern. Totally kid friendly funky modern little tavern. Great food, great mood, great company. It was the icing on the cake of the trip. Just felt so right to be there, I've only been home a day and a half and miss it dearly.

 The flight home was pretty awful. It would have been better to take a morning flight. Greyson pretty much threw a shit fit from take off to landing. And we got home well past bedtime, around 8 or 8:30.

I'm going to overlook that as poor planning on my part, and am looking forward to our next trip (which will also include new baby girl) to Seattle in the summer to check out our other prospective neighborhoods!