Stopping to Smell the Roses...

and what better a place than the City of Roses - Portland!!  bahaha,ok, maybe we spent a little less time smelling roses, but we did let our noses do the leading...right into pretty much every eatery downtown Portland has to offer. this was our first flight as 2 + 1...and boy, did that +1 have a lot of  +'s!!!! The hardest part about flying with a baby is definitly keeping track of all your crap through security.  they literally make you take everything apart and out...and then there is swabbing and scanning... once we got through that though, it was pretty easy.  Imster is a pretty laid back baby and as you can see, maintained a fairly happy mood.  you will notice that her jamjams are unbuttong though.  of course we boarded the plane, ended up having to sit for awhile, WITH NO AC.... so it started to get toasty.  she got a little fussy, but was no where near as cranky as most of the adults.  oh goobs.

now where to start our adventure...as i'm writing this, i'm not really sure how i want to organize the post...chronological? maybe.  categories (food, events, fun, etc) maybe? 

well, lets start here, at cacao!  yes, you see the sign, "drink chocolate" and. that. is. what. we. did.  this little place was attached to our hotel, The Heathman Hotel, which is a charming little hotel with lots of fun character...and maybe i'm biased becuase this cacao heaven was attached to it.  in the 3 days we were in portland, i think i was there 4, mmmmm, maybe 5 times.  while dad was at work, immi and i would go get a cup of 'drinking chocolate' (NOT to be confused with hot cocoa!) and sit and watch portlandians walk by.

and then there was this place.... the reason i went to portland in the first place. The Grilled Cheese Bus...ok, this wasn't technically the Grilled Cheese Bus.  it wasn't even a bus...but it IS the same guys...just the downtown location. and i know...i could probably make a delicious grilled cheese sandwich all on my own at home... but i have fond memories or the Grilled Cheese School Bus, playing cards with one of my favorite little men (Yah, Kaz...you know who you are).... anyways, immi and i were just walking along, checking out the city, and the rows of food trucks, when i spotted this gem...i'm not supposed to have dairy, but c'mon...could i really pass up a grilled cheese? NOT. LIKELY.  we then went on to find a gluten-free vegan bakery...which i'll write about later, since we went there multiple times as well...(meep).

so then it was friday night...when we went to bed that night, we had NO IDEA what excitement we were in for.  it was about 3am when what i thought was a VERY loud and obnoxious alarm clock started going off.  it kept telling me i had to leave the building...i don't know how many times i hit that damn alarm clock before i realized - no nikki - THIS IS AN ACTUAL ALARM TELLING YOU TO LEAVE THE BUILDING...oh lord...was pretty much the thought that went through my head.   we wrapped up the baby and grabbed her diaper bag and some blankets...and made our way to the stairs.  immi and i led the pack of bedheads from the 4th floor out the building, not really knowing what to expect.  after what had happened in boston the weekend before, i dont think anyone really knew or wanted to think about what could be happening... so we all sat outside, waiting.  the fire trucks came, and a nice lady from the hotel came out to let us know that it was a fire alarm that had gone off, but that she wasn't sure how/why.  there didn't appear to be any fire or smoke... so we all sat it out.  immi was in awe with all the lights flashing.  her arms were just flappin' away in excitement...then, the firemen (who looked SO PLEASED to be awake) came back out and said we were safe to re-enter the building.  best part- immi went right back to sleep - thank god!

ok, back to the food... downtown Portland has a block of food trucks...can you say YUM, from things like thai food, gourmet dumplings, crabcakes - oh - and BRATS!! bahaha.  of course the cheesehead in us couldn't turn down a brat.  i have no idea how to pronounce this food truck's name, but what i do know, is that they were the first truck on the block, they had a packer helmet on the fridge, and they had pretty amazing brats.  Adan got a brat on a burger...and i got the "frenzy" a brat style sloppy joe. nom. nom. nom.

then there was this place... Lardos! yep...a place for us Lardos to eat like fat kids PROUDLY - and yes, i was absolutely drawn in by the mere photo ops that came along with the HUGE glowing "PIG OUT" sign.  the 'dirty fries' weren't too bad either.

oh petunia's...sweet sweet petunia's.  immi and i found petunia's the first day we were in portland.  we stopped in, after already eat 2 breakfasts and 2 lunches, and had ourselves a salted peanut cookie sandwich.  petunia's is a gluten-free/vegan bakery...not that it really matters when you're already up like 3000 calories for the day.  of course, we had to bring back dad...twice.  the first time i was there...sparkly cupcakes...the last time we were there - SPARKLY DOUGHNUTS! for realz?! yes. FOR REALZ! pretty sure that was what heaven looks like...sparkly cupcakes and doughnuts.

i was a little disappointed by this place Tasty on Alder.  I stopped there the first day with Immi, and had this AMAZING radicchio salad, and an uber scumptious porkchop...i tried taking adam back twice, BUT they were so packed that they wouldn't even take our name. :( 

as some of you might have seen on Facebook...we needed to feed our inner nerd...so a trip to the OMSI was perfect.  one thing i learned?  we are more life science people than earth science people.  i think i would move to portland just to be able to go to the OMSI with Immi every day!

some extra shots we took around portland....

for immi's first trip, i think she enjoyed herself  ...what do you think? just some shots of my little love  enjoying herself in the city.