When Lily is away....we will play!!

AJ and I were able to spend a little weekend AWAY from Lily for the first time! I can't believe it took us 1 1/2 years to do it, but we were able to sneak away. Since our anniversary was during Andrea's wedding, we decided to wait until last weekend to do anything. So, Thursday morning we dropped Lily off at AJ's parents' house (thanks again!!!) for a long day I'm sure, then my parents took her the rest of the time (thanks again!!), and we were off to Portland! My dad was kind enough to get us a free, SWEET room at the Marriott hotel in downtown Portland that's right by the waterfront! It was amazing. Anyway, Thursday we went to Bridgeport and walked around, eat, saw the movie Get Smart (super funny) and read at Borders. During our "pre-Lily" days, we would always go to Borders for a date night to grab a coffee, sit in a chair and read a book for free! So we took advantage of this no Lily weekend and went to 3 bookstores! Crazy. All the pictures I have are pretty much the same format, me and AJ-he's holding the camera, etc. Hope they don't bore you out but you'll get the idea! Eating outside at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) it was soo good! And I had the best pineapple smoothie! It was super hot that day too and it was nice to sit outside!Reading in BordersAnd eating out again (you'll see lots of these eating photos!) at Claim Jumper! When we checked into our room, this fun fruit/cheese tray was waiting for us! The hotel did it since they knew it was our anniversary! We had some sparkling cider too. I definitely felt like the rich as I sat in bed drinking my cider in those fancy cups :)This is the view from our room! Isn't it beautiful?! Unfortunately, on Friday we woke up to this drizzly weather which bummed me out because we were going outside to explore Portland. Oh well, we made the most of it!And the other side of the window. That red bull stage you're seeing is for this little shindig they throw each year called the Flug Tag. And crazy teams make these "airplanes" and try to make them fly, but they just end up getting dunked in the water. This festival started the day we checked out which is sad because we had the best view! Here we are waiting for the Streetcar to take us to the Pearl District. The best part was that it's free! And AJ's being goofy -he kept making fun of me because I kept taking our picture. He would always ask "are you just doing this for your blog?" (which he never reads by the way!) and I'd reply "well of course!" He was a good sport though.No explanation needed :)We were embarrassed to take this picture of us riding, because all these people were on there that were clearly going to work and we didn't want to look stupid. Clearly we did though.
When we got to the Pearl District we walked over to Powell's Bookstore...It was quite the experience. This place is ginormous with wings and levels and everything full of books and weird people. I mean come on, we are in Portland :) And it smelled like hemp. We were there for a short time only! But I bought a book for $4.95! Score!
Our next stop was a gourmet cupcake place (thanks for the directions Wendy!)So excited to be at Cupcake Jones!The close up: A mocha chocolate creamy something good cupcake! At another Borders! We actually split up for a while (real romantic huh?!) because I wanted to shop at the Pioneer Place mall and AJ didn't, but I don't blame him! So this is how I found him when we caught up. After walking around some more we were quite tired and headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We decided to venture on over to the marina that's just across the street from our hotel. It was a cute atmosphere and I wish we'd discovered it sooner because they had great little restaurants and shops!

The marinaI wanted to take a picture of this sidewalk of shops/restaurants and of course AJ wanted to be a part of the picture. Can you see him?!Fun boats in the background. We decide to eat outside at McCormick and Schmick's and I was a bit chilly!Still at the restaurant...View from our table.

It wasn't the prettiest weather but it was mild enough we still had lots of fun! After dinner we walked around a bit and saw some true Portland people! AJ spotted this guy...

If you look closely, there's a CAT on his backpack just hanging out! We followed them for a bit trying to get a close up picture but we didn't want to be obvious! :) Then we thought, "does this guy know he has a cat on his backpack?" But sure enough, he did. WEIRD.Another room shot...hope it's not boring but it was the best view! This is the sun setting on the hills-beautiful!

After dinner we went back to change into our fancy clothes and headed over to Portland City Grill for dessert. We actually didn't get there until 9 pm! I felt like a young whipper snapper! :) We're usually relaxed in front of the TV at that hour so to be OUT was so fun! This restaurant is probably my favorite because of the view, ambiance, and everything else! It's a bit on the spendy side which is why we only had dessert there. Plus, it's more fun to be there when it's dark outside so you can see the city lights. This restaurant is on the 30th floor!Yes, I'm sportin' the bridesmaid dress again! We had so much fun at this restaurant and it was beautiful outside! Our waitress was so sweet that when she found out we were there for our anniversary, she brought out an extra dessert for free! As if 2 weren't enough! And she sprinkled rose petals on the table! So sweet!My dessert: A chocolate hazelnut cheesecake! I loved the representation-even the hearts in that chocolate sauce! Amazing.AJ's dessert: I don't know what it was called but it was chocolaty goodness!And the free dessert: A pear/cranberry bread pudding with caramel sauce-yum.
(And yes, we were even more embarrassed at this fancy restaurant taking pictures of our food!) And our LAST place of eating out was at Mother's Bistro for breakfast on Sat. morning. The best breakfast food and the place was so cute! I'd love to go there again the next time I'm in Portland.And this is the LAST view of our room for that Red Bull Flug Tag thingy. Look at all those people! I couldn't believe how crowded it got in the amount of time we left and came back from breakfast. I guess the news said there were 65,000 people there!

We had the best weekend away in Portland. It actually felt like we were on vacation yet we were still close enough to home. I would've easily stayed another night or 2! But I was definitely missing my baby girl and couldn't wait to see her. She looked extra tall to me too! They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and I fully agree to that statement! Thanks for your help with Lily Dan and Barb and Mom and Dad!This was taken the day we left for our little trip. I was loving on Lily and it looks like she was enjoying it too :)