Trip Back To Phoenix Day Part 1

We're back! We just spent four sweltering days in the furnace that is Phoenix. We are both questioning our decision to live in Phoenix for such a long time. There is more than enough room up here for all of you. Feel free to move to Portland at your nearest convenience. We will buy you donuts and beer for your effort.

 This trip was our last chance to figure out all of our wedding plans. So we crammed a few months worth of stuff into four days. Next time we make the trip down to Phoenix, we will be getting married :)

We rolled on the light rail to the airport with a bunch of luggage. It was sweaty and crowded. 

You can't see it very well from this photo, but about a gallon of water poured out of this vent in the ceiling right next to us. For some reason, water is required to spill from weird ceiling orifices when I am around. Possibly some sort of power I wield.

This little guy was sitting in front of us on the plane. 

Goodbye Oregon, we will miss your green grass and filthy hobos. 

We had a seat between us open. It was quickly occupied by Mirav's feet. Rare photo of  Mirav reading her kindle. 

At night, Phoenix looks like a big electronics board. Everything is flat and straight. There was a big lightning storm as we were coming in. Lightning and no rain, well played Phoenix.

Editors note: Before I go on, I just want to be clear. It was hot. So very hot. I an safely say that at no point did the temperature dip below 90 degrees, even at night. I'm about to start describing our Friday activities. Keep in mind Friday was the hottest August temperature ever recorded in Phoenix. If this is not evidence of my luck, I don't know what is. 

Friday morning we grabbed some breakfast at Butterfields with the Israelis. Avi has been eating breakfast once a week with these guys for 20 years. I was feeling especially Jewish that morning, so Mirav and I split a lox and bagel plate. 

They had waffles on the ceiling. 

It was 9AM when we left breakfast and it was about about 95 degrees

Next we headed to sprouts. I found an orange with a mohawk. 

Clouds, you are worthless

Time to head to London Gold to get our wedding rings. 

Mirav insisted that I not post a picture of our actual rings. She wants everyone to live in constant suspense for the next four months. So to pique your interest, this is the case we picked them from and the person that helped us. Intrigued? I know, right. 

Next, we headed over to Inspirador to work on the floor plan and do our caterer tasting. It was starting to get really hot at this point. Probably 110 degrees. 

They served an awesome blood orange punch with our tasting. 

This is the appetizer course we tasted. The ones at the bottom were melon and cheese with salt and pepper. Horrible, just awful. I was actually a little angry that they made me eat this. Everything else was pretty darn good. I won't give away our whole menu, but suffice to say you should be jealous that I got to eat this and you didn't. Especially Aaron, who lives in the land without food.

We took a little tour of Inspirador

I apologize to our florist, but this was the low point of my weekend. Flowers all kinda look the same to me. I did not appreciate talking about them for 2 full hours. 

The girls were riveted, like flowers were the most exciting new thing they had ever seen. They were like, "oh the textures and negative spaces and floaty candles are so interesting, let's talk about them forever!" And I was like, "This is boring and it's hot" 

At this point in the day, it was 117 degrees outside and I was talking about the most expensive flowers I will ever purchase. This little guy kept me company. 

After flowers, we headed over to my parents house. My dad had just come home from his last day of work EVER. He is officially retired and I am officially jealous. Ace hugged my shoe in celebration.  

Andy and Darlene made it in from Vegas and we had a low key Chinese food dinner. Nice way to wind down the day

Friday was a long hot day. 

More posts to follow...

Bite of Oregon

Things have been quiet around here lately. Work has been really busy for me and we haven't been doing a lot of fun stuff. Mostly just backyard BBQ's and watching crappy summer TV. This week we decided we were going to make the trip downtown and go to the annual Bite of Oregon. It was advertised  as being a food festival with booths that sell small plates and local beer and wine. It turned out to be more of a county fair without the rides. More on that later. 

As usual, I will start the post with a random photo of the dogs that has nothing to do with the blog itself, but I find amusing anyway. 

This is the neighbor cat that pokes his head in my window in the morning. I woke up one morning and he was staring at me like this. 

If you remember my New Years eve post, which I'm sure all of you do, you will remember that our friends Steve and Kim were pregnant. Well, I am happy to announce they are now the proud parents of a healthy baby boy. Nate Olson born 8/12/2011.

We made a detour to stop by the hospital to say congrats before we headed to the Bite. You could tell they were both exhausted, but so happy to be parents. Mirav held Nate while we stayed and chatted. 

This is what a 25 hour old baby looks like

I brought some celebratory beers for me and Steve. Apparently the hospital approves of this. Maybe not the best idea at 11:30am, but how often do you get to drink beer in a hospital? We could not be happier for Steve and Kim, they are going to be great parents. 

Steve and Kim had to go do baby stuff, for the next 18 years, so we said goodbye, dropped off the car and hopped the bus into downtown. Bite of Oregon was right on the waterfront downtown. It was pretty big, lots of tents, unfortunately I was not impressed overall with the event. Luckily, there were some high points that made up for it. 

One of the "Bites" was steak tenders and sweet potato tots. The dipping sauce was some kind of creme fraiche. I would say this was the high point of the day. It was fantastic. I am completely sold on the idea of sweet potato tots. 

Next, we split a philly cheese steak. It was the kind where use cheese whiz. This is Mirav eating her half. It got everywhere. I think I got some of mine on the camera while I was taking this picture. Not bad though. 

We were getting tired so we grabbed some cake and went to watch the Oregon version of Iron Chef. The two people competing were very talented amateurs. They were making sturgeon dishes that looked very good. It might have been fun, except for the two idiots they had announcing. They were some kind of radio announcers for what I can only assume are awful radio shows that no one listens to. For 30 minutes, they talked over each other and shouted "That looks so good, what is that, dill?" It wasn't dill. By the time they gave the food to the judges, I couldn't take it anymore. We left without finding out who won. All I know is that I lost. 

This is the cake we ate while we watched the idiot circus on stage. They called it champagne. White cake, butter cream frosting and custard filling between layers. Amazing cake, all I can say. I think the world would be a lot better with more of this cake and less radio DJ's. 

We also got this whoopee pie from the cake place. The lack of filling was disappointing. 

After all that, we got on the bus and rode home. It was a fun day. Cake, cheese whiz, morning beer and tiny humans. I would say that's about all the fun I can take in one day. I came home and took an hour long nap on the floor. Just another crazy day in Portland.