Bonjour! Well, I had a great birthday week and it all started off with a great weekend filled with Rook, Sevens, & good friends. On March 10th I had invited friends that knew how to play Rook well and we had a good Rook night. I was able to play two great games of Rook and Laura, bless her heart, made playing three-handed Rook fun! Elijah is always welcome to play Rook anytime. We had so many treats and at one point Nikki & Letitia interrupted our 4 handed game with a big hot tray of nachos. It was a great break. When we were playing and the silence seemed too intense for me, I said, "Hey Laura, tell them about your 'almost getting arrested' story." Well this got everyone's attention and both tables stopped playing cards to listen to her tell her tale. It was so funny and afterwards Gary (said with scottish accent) dubbed her "Bridge Jumper"and that is what he called her the rest of the night. There was Gary, Letitia, Nikki, Randy, Chandra & Laura. Ahhh good times! Laura and I make a great Rook team...high five!
Sunday, I had "the girls" over. Now when you say "The Girls" everyone knows that you are referring to Laura, Elicia & Heather...and if they don't well they should. I made Basa Fillets that were on sale at Safeway...they are delicious. I baked them in the oven with some butter and lemon. We had linguine with Four Cheese Alfredo and salad aka "greens" from Elicia, as well as carrots from Heather and Broccoli from Laura. After dinner we had some great relaxing conversation and some catching up a bit. Overall a great continuation of my Birthday week. I love having people over and will try to do it more often.
Every Wednesday night is 'Spectacular Movie Night in New West" @ Dan or Loren's house. On Facebook, Dan created a group so that more people will know to come and we can also choose the movie we want to watch during the week leading up to it. I am VP of Facility Improvement and Baking. Exciting hey?
Thursday, Gab & I rented the car that will take us on our adventure to Portland on Friday-Saturday. That night we went to Walmart and picked up some road trip items and since we were staying at her friend's house we bought some Ketchup & Dill pickle chips because you can't buy them in the States.
Friday, March 16th, the day of the trip. I was able to get off work @ 3:45 and Gab met me there so we were able to leave for the border right away. We were waiting to cross for about 45 min and started on our wa @ 5pm. Now, the drive is supposed to be 5 hours but we were able to get to Seattle in an hour & a half so we thought, great, we will get to Portland way sooner than we hoped. After passing the SEA-TAC airport driving into Tacoma, we caught up with all the traffic. So for an hour we were driving the speed limit or lower...too bad. We stopped for 15 min. for a bite to eat and then we were on our way and I was driving this time. Again, we hit a bunch of traffic and were slow for a while and at one time Gab noticed that I was doing the speed limit and said "You know Barb, if the traffic is doing 80 miles per hour and you are just keeping up with them, you won't get a ticket because its safer to keep up with traffic." So after that, instead of doing 70mph or 65mph when you hit Oregon, I kept up with traffic which was doing 80mph the whole time and if it slowed down, then I got behind the fastest car. Fun! We finally arrived in Portland and with Gab's good directions and ability to give me advance notice of when to turn, we found the place we were to stay o/night at no problem. I told her that we could do Amazing race and do very well. Too bad only Americans can compete:(
So, Saturday, we left for the Temple about 9am and arrived in time for the 10am session. We ended up getting a bit off track from where we wanted to be because of mapquest directions. Gab, said this has happened to her before, where it misses out on one piece of information. In this case, it said for us to turn right at a certain street but that street didn't exist. Thank goodness that we both have a good sense of direction so we were able to get on the right road and we also asked someone, then we were on our way! The Portland Temple is magnificent. When we arrived we saw a cute guy but he was leaving, and he was packing his stuff up on his motorcycle...if only i had a little more courage. I told Gab to go for it but she didn't. The Temple is a bigger version of the Las Vegas Temple and the outside is marble, as well as inside. The celestial room has two levels...paradise. Now I understand why so many people rave about this Temple. There was another cute single - no ring - in our session. Portland Temple is the place to meet guys, except I was too chicken to say hi or try to give the dazzling smile.
After the Temple, Gab & I drove to downtown Portland and walked around..well actually parked the car and walked a couple blocks down to where there was a St. Patrick's day performance outside of an Irish shop. I had no film to document the performers, they had bagpipes, drums, there was a big crowd and so I ventured into the store hoping they would have film...no such luck but they had lots of Irish touristy items to sell. I bought Jenn S. an Irish Wishing Stone from Ireland (she said she wanted a rock), and then I bought Gab & I these green Irish bracelets with four leaf clover charms around it. She didn't want me to pay for it but I insisted and she let me. I was a little surprised and pleased, it's not often she lets that happen. I had to check out one more place before we left Portland and that was Powell Bookstore. A huge bookstore with a lot of new and used books. I bought "Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find them" a little book to go along with the Harry Potter books. Its silly but I like it. I also bought a hard cover children's book "Peter Pan" but I fear that somw of the original text has been rewritten and re-worded to make it more readable for children. This will not do! I need to find the original story in hardcover. My book purchases came to 5.93US. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
After the bookstore we were on our way, our next stop was Jenn & Klif's place in Blaine. I almost forgot to mention that the weather was beautiful in Portland for my birthday. It was truly spring outside, wearing shorts and a t-shirt kind of weather but I was in a skirt and a long sleeved blouse...sigh. The sky was clear and the blue was very blue. After we drove into Washington state (ten minutes away), soon after it started to rain and then it didn't stop until we reached Jenn's. We made a little bit of a detour and stopped at the Outlets in Tulalip and I bought a pair of pants from Eddie Bauer. We were making great time, until we stopped for the shopping trip. I am getting really good at driving in a torrential rain downpour it seems that that is usually the weather for me when I travel from Seattle.
At Jenn & Klif's we had a traditional Irish dinner, consisting of boiled cabbage, corned beef and hash (potatoes). It was very good and they tricked me into believing that dessert was Pistachio pudding because it's green and I said, "that's great." but my face was saying, "gross but I can live with it." Jenn made me try some of the pudding and was so enthusiastic about me eating it but I couldn;t hide my distaste for it. I felt so bad until I was told later that she knew all along that I hated Pistachio pudding and that my real dessert was Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. I love Jenn. It was a really great birthday and all the events that lead up to it. I have some really good friends here and its such a comfort and a blessing.
