It was quiet and cloudy as we exited the airport ready to hop on pubic transit to our downtown hotel. We’d come from 99 degree weather in Texas so, I was quick to pull on my “light” wool sweater over my short sleeved shirt and jeans. I knew the following 5 days were going to be heavenly as we escaped the brutal summer heat wave to get away for our belated 1 year anniversary trip to Portland and Astoria, Oregon.

The first part of our trip was spent in Portland, Oregon. It was dreamy. We could walk just about anywhere in the city we wanted to go. It was safe, clean, most public transit was FREE, oh and did I mention the PERFECT weather? I barely even broke a sweat while I was there. Most of the time I donned a cardigan and/or leggings.

We walked most of the city with the exception of hopping on the (Free)  TriMet MAX or Streetcars to navigate us to places farther than a couple of blocks from our hotel (Hotel Modera, which we highly recommend). There was plenty of free stuff to do. Across our stay in Portland we walked the entire city, photographed just about everything possible, walked along the Colombia River, strolled through parks, purchased some fresh fruit at the Farmer’s Market, bought a book at Powell’s Books, spent a couple hours at the (dreamy) Rose Gardens, etc…   The most difficult part about spending time in Portland was trying to decide on which amazing restaurants to dine at. I nearly had a panic attack one evening when several of the places I put on my “must eat” lists were already booked… but not to worry, we finally got our name on the list at Andina and only had a short wait before seated.  We did enjoy Mother’s Bistro TWO days in a row for brunch. It was heavenly.

Between Portland and Astoria, I shot probably close to 2,000 images. However, I only posted 385 to my Flickr account. Only. hah. Below are some of my favorites from Portland. I will do another post on our adventures in Astoria soon.

Here’s a link to view the entire album on Flickr.

I’ve worked really hard the past 6 months/year to keep a good balance in my life. As in not work after I’m home from work so, that means… less blogging. It’s been really nice having this balance, but I will try to improve at blogging more often (I have a running to-do list for blog posts) so, more coming soon.

Anyway, I’ve been so excited to blog about our recent (belated) 1 year anniversary trip to Oregon last month.  Here’s one of my favorite shots (I have like 97 favs) but, here’s a good one from the giant test Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon. It was breathtaking.

One of my high school best friends, Brittany, got married a couple months ago to Chris. Chris also went to high school with us and lived less than a block away from Brittany growing up. Who knew they’d get married?!   They got married in the beautiful town of Horseshoe Bay, TX (near Austin).  The church they were married in overlooked the beautiful bright blue bay, and the reception was held at the Horseshoe Bay Resort (which was also beautiful!) Her mom helped plan most of it and she did an amazing job. Her sisters were her brides maids and our friend, Jenna, and I read scripture during the ceremony.  Brittany, you made a beautiful bride!!

Here are some of my favorites from the weekend. Note: I was not the hired photographer, these are just personal shots.
You can view the whole set on Flickr.