march madness!

I've been keeping pretty busy lately... Gabe was up here visiting over my birthday, and then two days after he left, Emily came for the weekend. Let's see... my birthday was pretty good. I was bummed about being away from my family to celebrate but it turned out ok. The day of my birthday was mellow - Gabe, Tawny, and I went to lunch, then did some shopping, Gabe and I watched a movie... nothing too crazy. That night, Gabe, Margot, Tawny, and I went to Saucebox for dinner. It's sort of an asian fusion kind of spot with really really good cocktails. They make my favorite drink ever - a thai basil gimlet. Yum. There was lots of drama that went down but it's probably better left unmentioned. After that we went back to my apartment to make some drinks and hang out before going to the bars. A few other friends came over (John, Cheyne, Cameron) and Lindsey and Joe were there too. We ended up having a bit to drink but finally made it to one of my favorite bars, Life of Riley, where I dominated the pool table and then decided to try some shuffleboard, which I've never really played but somehow managed to be exceptional at. Must have been some birthday luck. I also made friends with a guy from Villa Park, who it turns out knows a few of my friends from home. Random. All in all, a good night.


The rest of Gabe's visit was pretty uneventful - I had to work for a lot of the weekend, but we ate some yummy food and went to the movies and hung around. He left on St. Patty's Day, and then I had the brilliant idea to make irish car bomb cupcakes. With Tawny's assistance I finished them in time to take to a friend's house, where he and his girlfriend made a St. Patty's feast - corned beef, cabbage, boiled potatoes and carrots, and soda bread. I did a little eat and run (it was delicious) and then had to go to work, where I waited on the UW basketball team (they were in town for the NCAA tourney).


Em got into town on Thursday night and it was really really great to see her. We had tons to catch up on, plus I was really excited to show her Portland. We crammed a lot of stuff into a few days, including (in no particular order):
-lots of happy hour: jake's famous crawfish, masu sushi, typhoon
-a little bit of shopping downtown
-manicure/pedicure (pictured above)
-farmer's market
-hiked multnomah falls
-made a yummy healthy whole wheat/pesto/roasted veggie pizza for dinner
-bikram yoga (she kind of got me hooked on it now)
-a little stop at pf chang's for a late dinner one night
-met up with paul, her friend from oxy who was in town for the weekend
-fancy cocktails at teardrop
-brunch on mississippi
-saw duplicity (we were both a little confused by it)
-walked along the esplanade
-nw 23rd
-voodoo donuts
-powell's city of books
-watched paris, je t'aime (in preparation for my trip!)

here is a picture of Em at the falls


that's all for now, Lindsey's mom is coming into town today for the weekend so I'm going to do a little bit of clean up before I head to work!