Dan and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary at the end of June. We can’t decide if we feel like it’s been 5 years, or if it feels more like 10, or 20, or maybe just 2 weeks. But however long it feels like on any given day, we feel happy. It’s been an AMAZING 5 years, and I’m so happy to be married to my best friend!
When we got married, we were in the painful beginning stages of starting our business, and we didn’t have a dime to put toward a honeymoon. As our little photo business has grown over the past 5 years, every June we’ve been faced again and again with the decision: make money, or spend money. So every anniversary, we, of course, chose to make money, and celebrating our anniversary involved heating up a pizza at the end of a long wedding — someone else’s long wedding, of course.
But this year, we thought it was about time to do something for US. And we decided to embark on our first EVER vacation.
We knew we wanted to visit the west coast. I’ve never been any further west than Las Vegas, and Dan hasn’t been to the WC since he was a kid in California. We’d heard lots of great things about Portland from friends and family, so we took the plunge and booked tickets to the City of Roses… or… Stumptown?
………………….
The first photo we’ve ever taken of OUR rings, imported from Canada 5 years ago:
With a little boost from my Starwood-employed sister, we stayed at the luxurious hotel The Nines in the heart of downtown Portland.
And, of course, the first thing we did is take pictures of our room. We have like a million of them. Here are just a few.
Check out the iPod dock on the nightstand! Not sure why, but that was super-exciting to us.
Dan.
I was giving our room a thumbs-up. I think Dan was throwing out a 3-fingered peace sign? (Isn’t that cool wallpaper?)
Me.
The restaurant Urban Farmer was in our hotel. We didn’t eat there, but it looked pretty.
We DID eat at an awesome joint called The Original. We actually ate there twice. It was YUM, and our server Kayla was awesome. (We LOVED that everywhere you go to eat in Portland you have a huge selection of fresh, organic food. We’re just waiting for Atlanta to catch up!)
Day 2 was a “FREEZING” 63 degrees when we headed out for our Portland Walking Tour. (Then our tour guide informed us that it was a “beautiful, WARM day, PERFECT for a walking tour,” and we realized that we were just spoiled by the Georgia heat.)
We learned that this sculpture, “Portlandia”, was intended to become Portland’s landmark, like the Eiffel Tower or Washington Monument. But the artist retained ALL rights to the sculpture until his passing, so photos and videos of Portlandia are all but nonexistent. Oh well.
A small art exhibit was being hung in a theatre we visited. The artist’s name wasn’t up yet, but I LOVED this piece, so I took a picture. I’d love to give credit to the artist if anyone knows who created this.
The other restaurant we visited twice was Ping, a DELICIOUS Asian restaurant on the edge of Chinatown.
I wish I could eat those potato skewers every day. EVERY. DAY. They were amazing.
We hopped on a pedicab one afternoon to visit Dan’s favorite coffee shop, Peet’s. He’s ordered their beans online for years, but this was his first opportunity to visit a store in person. Our poor driver took us WAY up a hill — dude was sweating like crazy — then realized he’d taken us the wrong way, and we had to ride all the way back down the hill. We tipped him a big extra fat tip.
Self portrait in our hotel.
One of our FAVORITE parts of the trip was visiting Portland’s Saturday Market. Vendors sell everything from handmade goods like clothing and shoes, to musical instruments, to food and juices. We got “breakfast” there twice — elephant ears. Mmmm.
These food stands were at the Saturday Market, but other stands were literally EVERYWHERE in Portland. Most days we had lunch from a food stand. There was every type of food you could imagine!
This little string quartet was playing by the river.
We spent an afternoon at the Japanese Garden. It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful.
This was us waiting for the bus to take us from the metro stop to the garden entrance. Well, we didn’t actually stand like this the whole time we were waiting. Just some of the time.
Dan took this picture of me standing on a little bridge in the middle of the most beautiful irises.
Another self portrait.
We didn’t have a long enough lens with us, but you could see Mount Hood from an overlook in the Japanese Garden.
We walked over to the Rose Garden, but instead of seeing the roses, we spent an hour hanging out with a couple of extra-friendly squirrels. This squirrel was the teenager. He was the skittish one.
Then Big Fatty came along… Literally, belly dragging the ground. Poor overfed little guy.
But really, how do you say no to this? I think he would have taken the food out of Dan’s mouth if he’d let him. (Look at the gut on that squirrel!)
The train from the gardens came through this tunnel. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOO cold down there inside the mountain!
We liked this parking deck, even if it was full of cars. Do we look like car salespeople?
We both bought new jeans at this sweet little shop called Blake. BIG thanks to our tour guide Amanda for telling us how to find the best jeans shop in Portland!
Me again.
My love. :)
At my sister-in-law’s request, we HAD to check out Voodoo Doughnut!
Doughnuts with Froot Loops on top?!?!? WHAT?! :D
We got to hang out with our friend Cory while we were in town. YAY! (See my teeshirt? I got it from a screen printer at the Saturday Market. Well, you can’t really see it very well here, but it’s super cute.)
Our last night in Portland, Cory took us to this little hole-in-the-wall bar where your drinking choices were beer or water. (Sorry, Dan!) It was super cozy inside, and people were hanging out at tables with their dogs running around and the cool night air spilling in the open door.
Happy Anniversary, baby!
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