Portland, Leavenworth (WINE) and Beyond

Wow, what  a crazy, amazing weekend I had.  I really do need to calm down and relax at some point!  Mom keeps telling me, I'll crash some day, Miss Energizer Bunny!

Portland--Blogger NW Christmas Party
Kendra from Adventures of Brad and Kendra and I headed down to Portland for a Holiday Party for the PNW bloggers group.  We go down there early enough to do some shopping.  I took us over to the Hawthorne district since I love this area!  I knew Kendra was looking for Scrabble games for her crafts and felt like she'd find some at the thrift and vintage stores, but no such luck. Kendra is a terrible influence, just so you know.  She wants you to buy lots and lots and lots of stuff!!  Ha ha.  I ended up in the middle of my budget and what Kendra wanted me to buy:)    The blogger event was interesting, that's all I'll say.  But, I do have to mention that I met some amazingly genuine fun girls, Mary and Alyson!  Once I met these girl, I had such amazing time!

Owls, owls everywhere, if it were up to Kendra, I'd have them all in my house right now.

Amazing dip set.

This reminds me of me and Bridge, or me and Daylon, or me and Mike. Ha ha. I love it.

Peacocks!!!!  These feather trees are beautiful!

Whoa, fresh pot?  Awesome, just picked?

We had an amazingly delicious lunch at the McMenamins.

Who would have thought, this really exists?

I know I'm crazy, but I'm totally drawn to creepy things.

POWELLS!

Ha ha!

MARY, this girl is freaking amazing.  Kendra even said that when she was talking to her she was thinking, whoa she is a lot like Alicia.

My car, Chette, has been a real bastard!  On our way home, my mirror was shaking violently. I was at the grocery store, shut my door and bam, my mirror fell off.  All day today I kept checking my mirror anyway.

Yes!  I bought one of these for Daylon a while back. I had to have this one. My friend told me the inventor is on Shark Tank.

 Living Social Event -- Wine tasting bus to Leavenworth
I invited my old co-worker, and amazing friend, Melissa to this amazing Living Social event I found.  It  comprised of a bus tour of two wineries, where you tasted many wines at each and had a four course lunch.  Then you ended up in Leavenworth for an hour of shopping, oh wait, no shops are open.  Ha ha, so you can go to the bar or the bar.  OK:) It was such a blast hanging out, we don't get to have fun enough!!

We got to the bus pick up point early so we decided to go to the Funhouse for a drink only to find out it was closed and they had this sign in the window.

Luckily the EMP bar was open, and we were able to have double screwdrivers!!!

Hanging out on the bus with my girl Melissa!

Fake smiles.

The winery had dogs that liked to eat the fallen soldiers, grapes.

Tub of grapes, Cab. Franc.

Tempered tanks, this is a batch of Pino Gris, note the duct tape label.

Semi-auto bottler!  They do about 3500 bottles a year. It's a boutique winery.

Labeling and capping station.

Barrel Room

Sweet potato, andouille sausage ravioli.  This was so delicous and the riesling was rocking as well.

Yummy!

Kind of a gross salad to be honest.  Not enough dressing and nuts and pears don't make me happy to eat salad.

Orgasmic food!  It was a chocolate blah blah sauce.  Usually I hate savory and sweet, but this was not that. It was so well done.  Some sort of fancy chocolate reduction with beef, cauliflower mash and mushrooms.  I'm drooling thinking about it!

Truffles, AKA BALLS!!  These balls were to die for.  There was one that was cayenne infused. MMM.

This tasting room was so beautiful and in an amazing location!

I had to buy this flavor!!  It was pretty damn delicious.

 As mom says, I'm an energizer bunny!  At some point I'll crash for sure, but for now, I love going and experiencing life with people I love!

Painting with Jesse, GOURDS

I got a Living Social voucher for painting at Uncorked Canvas in Tacoma.  It was a great deal, and I was pretty excited that it's close to home.  I also was excited to try out a different company than Corks and Canvas.  I adore Corks and Canvas, I just thought it would be fun to see how others do it and perhaps have a different experience.

Jesse actually paints, but he wanted to get out and do a painting to rekindle his passion for it.  We met up at The Mix, which is a super cute gay bar, for a pre-painting beverage.  At Corks and Canvas, you mingle, drink, eat at the beginning of the event; painting doesn't actually start until an hour into it.  So, I assumed it would be the same but when we walked in at 7:05, everyone was quietly waiting on us.  It was uber awk-duck with everybody waiting on us and it was eerily quiet.  When I do these events I like to have a good time which often equates to being a bit loud, giggly, and vibrant.  The teacher asked us what we wanted to drink and poured us a glass of wine.  My wine was terrible, it tasted like it was old.  Which we came to find out, you get one glass of wine for a 3 hour class and you can't buy more.  I feel like calling the company uncorked canvas is actually hilarious, because you will not be drinking much throughout the night.  Maybe it's called uncorked because the wine sits uncorked for long periods of time.  There was no way we were even going to go through an entire bottle because the class was only 6 people and I think Jesse and I were the only ones that opted to have wine.  I could go on for a while on how disappointing this experience was but I'll get on  and leave you with my final complaint.  They drew in the pumpkins for each student!!!  The nerve of them to assume I can't paint a freaking pumpkin.  This just takes all of the creativity out of it for me.  Oh and don't get me wrong, Jesse and I had a blast despite all the crap. We were noisy and got lots of dirty looks, it was amazing.

 I had to take a picture of Stink for Jesse and Daylon, since they are both vegans.

The Mix had skittles at the bar for the customers enjoyment.  This place won me over immediately when I walked in.

They gave us lots of paint, look I can give compliments.  But would you just take a look at the brushes we got?  What am I supposed to do with these monsters?  I'm a detail girl, I need my small round and flat brushes, okay...

My masterpiece.  My mom actually said it's my best painting yet.  I do like it a lot, but I was too busy being miserable about the experience to enjoy the process.

Jesse, much like Bridget always does, went rogue.  Ha ha, he just did his own thing.  This picture doesn't do it justice at all.  It was truly amazing.

So I will not be giving any more of my time or money to this company, however I definitely want to paint with Jesse more.  I think he needs to teach me blending and layering and techniques for painting on my own. Can you learn creative from someone? 

Blend - A Night of Wine and Gourmet Food

Daylon and I headed to the Bell Harbor International Conference Center to enjoy the event, Blend.  It was a $50 event but that gets you all you can eat and all you can drink.  It was super swanky.

They had this concoction that was some sort of margarita; it was dangerous because it didn't taste like alcohol.  MM, delishy bomb.

The food was incredible.  Poor Daylon couldn't eat anything, there was nothing vegan friendly.  But, he kept telling me to try everything, so he could live vicariously through me.  Ha ha.  See my ceviche below.

This dish was my absolute favorite dish!  It's a poached prawn tower, gazpacho consomme, harissa crisp with salish honey and cucumber gelee.  So incredible, mouth-gasm.

Mm, more delicious food.

There is crazy hair guy, he poured some nice wine.

Lots of wine.

Me and Daylon's new friends that we met in the bubble lounge.  Sarah and Melissa are the coolest!  They're our Bellingham friends.

The bubble lounge was my favorite.  There was a station where they let us try all of them. It was a flight.  That is where we met our new friends.

This hottie was at the chocolate event that we went to Friday.  It was pretty exciting to see him again.  Unfortunately, he's engaged and not available.  I was trying to find out for my friends.

I will definitely be looking this event up next year.  And I'm pretty sure Daylon will need to go with me, he makes everything more fun.