Celebrating 51

Friday was my birthday and I have to say it ranked right up there as one of the best.  Although my 50th birthday was pretty amazing.

The day started with Jim offering to make me breakfast but since I knew I would be consuming mass quantities of food for lunch and dinner I decided it might be a good idea not to have breakfast.

After my morning walk my friend Marsha and I headed down to the Pearl District to visit some of my favorite places.

Our first stop was Powell's where of course we could have spent the entire day or maybe even the entire week.  I bought myself a new book I am excited to read.  The book was published in the mid 1940s and I found an original, first edition of the book.

 

We then made a stop at Sur Le Table where I drooled over the new color - fennel of the Le Creuset cookware

 Then a visit to Anthropologie for a few new latte bowls. 

 And then lunch at Cafe Nell with some of my favorite people.

 My friend Meg ordered the french toast which I think is the most amazing french toast I have ever had.  I am going back soon so I can have my own plate of it!!

 My pulled pork was good but the french toast was amazing!

A table full of women I am truly grateful for.

 For dessert we all shared one slice of red velvet cake.  Let's just say it looked much prettier than it tasted.  A little bit of a disappointment...  fortunately for me Jim bought me my favorite cake from Beaverton Bakery - lemon poppyseed so I had that to look forward to.

After lunch Jim and I made a trip to Ikea.  When Jim asked me what I wanted for my birthday I told him new shelves for the craft room.  Unfortunately they were out of the brackets I wanted but we got the shelves and some baskets to use on the shelves.  When Jim asked me what I was going to put on the shelves - I told him "stuff"!  I've got lots of stuff!

For dinner the three of us went to Oba, a restaurant I had heard lots of great things about over the years but we had n ever been there.  It is in the Pearl and is nuevo latino cuisine.  It is one of the best meals I have had in a long time.  We had an amazing server and she made it an extra special evening for us.  She brought a marionberry and spritzer toast for us when she found out it was my birthday (she very nicely asked if we drank champagne before she brought it)  I guess the fact that we didn't order alcohol before dinner tipped her off.  Smart girl.  She made great recommendations for food and then she brought us an amazing complimentary dessert.

I dont' know what I was thinking but I didn't take my camera to dinner.  My camera phone had to do but it was a very dark restaurant so they aren't the best but at least you can see the Baked Argentina which was do good.  It had a brownie base with vanilla bean ice cream and bananas on top, covered in the most amazing melt in your mouth meringue sitting in a puddle of mango and pineapple caramel sauce - pure heaven!  We were all stuffed but we forced ourselves to eat it!

 The day ended watching an episode of Larkrise to Candleford with a piece of my yummy birthday cake ( I don't need to eat for the next week), cozed up in bed with Tessa!  (Jim was watching some ball game of course!)

Just about a perfect day!