Girls Day Out

My sister left to go home last Wednesday morning (sniff, sniff) from her "come rescue Karen from summer chaos" trip. We had a fantastic time not doing very much at all, but before she left we felt we had to do at least one sight-seeing excursion. So we got a sitter and spent the day with my bestest friend Ranell. We had a fantastic lunch at Pok Pok. My last trip to Pok Pok was with four kids in tow and was (surprisingly?) quite stressful. But this trip was fabulous. We got a bunch of different dishes to share and the most difficult thing was trying to decide which was the most delicious. Amazing coconut curry chicken noodle soup (made with house-pressed coconut milk! Seriously, comfort in a bowl...), spicy green papaya salad with crispy fried pork and cilantro, Phat See Ew with juicy, fat noodles laced with pork and broccoli.... Wow.

We followed our delightful culinary binge with a stroll through the International Rose Test Gardens.

 

Then we had a relaxing meander around the Japanese Gardens.

Don't you love the random guy in a hat on the left of the picture? He moved to get out of the way, but apparently did not move far enough...

Don't you feel more zen-like just looking at it?

Don't you love the raked swirls surrounding each rock? Like we are islands, sending out ripples to touch each other... (I'm waxing poetic now, aren't I?)

Somewhere along the way it came out that Ranell, who has lived near Portland even longer than I have, has never been to Powell's Books. This was truly a travesty and completely unacceptable, so we resolved to remedy the situation immediately. We finished our day with a jaunt to Powell's, complete with random browsing- although we managed to miss parking in the ghetto Powell's parking garage. (Random book find of the day: "Awkward Family Photos." My favorite is the photo is the one with the caption "Ever wonder what the boy with the clarinet really thinking?") To complete the day we picked up a sweet treat at Mio Gelato across the street. We started the day with great Thai food and finished it with a scoop of Sweet Cream Gelato and Plum Sorbetto. Yum.

I was so sad to see Alisa go- I really need to get some family to move closer than 12 hours away one of these days. But it was great to have her come and rescue me from the "I'm not going to survive all of these kids until school starts" stage of the summer. Love you, Lise!