girl’s weekend

Sleep Over

Posted by Lisa Eirene

Over the weekend I had the pleasure to help a friend celebrate her upcoming wedding! My friend, Samantha, is getting married in August and we had her bachelorette party over the weekend.

I’ve known Sam for over 11 years. We worked together in my last job. She was the “floater” who would cover the people on vacation or leave so we met one day when she was covering for someone in my unit. We became friends right away. Sam is an awesome, funny, smart, strong lady who is the QUEEN of PUNS. 😀

On Saturday a group of people got together for lunch to start the party! We met at Matador–one of my favorite restaurants (and where we had our rehearsal dinner!).

I got the street tacos and the brussels sprouts. The sprouts were AMAZING! So delicious! I got a Mojito (they usually have Boneyard on tap but not this time, bummer!). There were 12 of us there to celebrate this awesome lady.

After lunch we had some time to kill before we could check in at the AirBnB so we stopped for gelato:

After that we all headed to the house that was rented. It was in Sandy, so not far from Mount Hood. I was the first one there and got to poke around before everyone else saw it. WOWZA. That house was stunning! There were several rooms with king sized beds and then a few rooms with bunk beds. But that view…words cannot describe how gorgeous it was.

Oh and…there were a lot of animals heads. LOL

And a fire pit:

We were pretty high up but the view was stunning and we could still hear the Sandy River below.

Every body else arrived and we unpacked and unloaded the beverages and picked out our sleeping arrangements. Then settled in for the evening. There was a lot of just hanging out, especially on that deck. I mean, how could you not?

Sam made everyone dinner, despite numerous and frequent requests from guests to help or do it for her. But she wanted to cook everyone a meal to show her gratitude and love. I mean, what an awesome person, right! She made a tofu curry that was absolutely delicious!

There was some wine and some of the ladies brought whisky and tequila (no thanks!!).

Group shot!

Then the fire and roasting marshmallows and making s’mores.

As the sun started to set, Mount Hood poked out of the clouds for the first time. It was breathtaking. There were bats flying around, it was a warm summer night and no one was in a hurry to do much of anything. Before we knew it, it was dark.

We had this gorgeous cake for dessert:

And just hung around around the campfire. My favorite summer activity! I think we all went to bed around 11:30 (party animals!) and it was a nice, quiet house for sleeping. I slept pretty good with my bunkmate in the king bed. She joked that we had the same bedtime routine: eye masks and ear plugs!! I woke up a few times kind of early in the morning because I could smell someone downstairs making coffee. It wafted through the house but I was so sleepy and lazy feeling I just kept going back to sleep. Then up for breakfast with the ladies.

Fresh fruit, granola, yogurt, coffee and mimosas for whoever wanted them) and someone made a “buckle” coffeecake. I’d never heard of it before but it was SO GOOD! It was basically coffeecake with a ton of fruit in it. It was a pretty slow morning. I enjoyed some coffee out on the deck in the sun. It was already a pretty hot day. Then it was time to pack up and say our goodbyes.

I had SO much fun celebrating my friend! She’s an awesome person and I’m so excited for her wedding. And I got to widen my friend circle and made some cool new friends. It was a very fun, relaxing, empowering weekend of ladies!

After leaving I went swimming and then home to my boys!

Weekend on the Water

Posted by Lisa Eirene

One of my favorite memories as a younger person was when I drove to Montana (from Portland) by myself to hang out with my friend Rachel. She lived near Glacier National Park and it was very cool and empowering to go on a road trip all by myself (I think I was like 23 or so at the time). I drove for hours in my Buick LeSabre (classy) to Spokane, Washington, spent the night in a motel 6-type place and then the next day drove the rest of the way to see Rachel in Montana. It was a GREAT trip with lots of stories (some we will never share with anyone 😀 ) and it was just me on the road with good music and my Road Atlas (yes this was before GPS and smartphones).

(The above photo was me in Montana!)

Over the weekend I got to spend some quality time with my bff Rachel! A few months ago we made plans to have a girl’s weekend somewhere half-way in between Portland and Seattle. I’ve been looking forward to this for months! A weekend away to do girl stuff and recharge…sign me up!

We booked a really adorable guest house on AirBnB. Rachel found it and I highly recommend it! It was pretty remote–you are about 30 minutes from anything, like if you forget your chocolate (like we did), you to have drive 30 minutes to the nearest store. But despite not being near anything, it was the ideal location. It was right on the water on Harstine Island near Shelton, Washington.

You cross over a bridge and then you are on the Island (probably 30 minutes or so from Olympia?) and you are surrounded by trees and the water and quiet waterfront homes. We barely saw anybody out, maybe a few fishermen on the water, that was it.

There was one bedroom and then a loft bedroom.

There was comfy furniture for movie watching.

The bathroom was nice, but slightly weird. 😉

The deck overlooking the trees and water were absolutely amazing! And the house had all these big, beautiful windows overlooking the trees and Sound.

There was a pool that Rachel and I were really excited to use but sadly, it was closed up for the season by the time we got there. Bummer!

Friday afternoon I left Portland and unfortunately I a) didn’t get to say goodbye to Logan because he was still napping when I left and b) hit rush hour Friday traffic trying to get out of Portland so it took longer than expected to arrive, but it was fairly nice and easy drive once I got out of Portland/Vancouver.

Rachel had already checked in and was doing some work remotely and just relaxing. When I arrived we cooked dinner (steaks and baked potatoes and lots of wine) and stayed up way too late gabbing and catching up.

I got the bedroom downstairs and the bed was glorious and so comfy! I might have slept at an angle, taking up the entire bed, because I could. 😉 I slept so good. It was so quiet and peaceful and comfortable.

Saturday I got to sleep in!!!!!!!! Wooooo hooo! I slept in until almost 8am. The bed was so comfy and I didn’t want to get out of bed but Rachel made coffee and I could smell it so…yeah I got up. 😀 We had breakfast (eggs, toast, bacon, coffee, juice) and then we went kayaking!

I didn’t take any photos of us kayaking, which I’m bummed about, but I was worried about my phone so it was just better to leave it behind. Rachel went in on a kickstarter years ago with Oru Kayaks, which are kayaks that fold up into something compact and easy to transport. So it was pretty fascinating to watch her put together these kayaks that were essentially folded up into boxes. It’s a pretty ingenious idea!

So it took about 30 minutes to put the kayaks together and then we were in the water. I can see where the process of putting them together could be kind of a pain in the ass…Rachel admitted that it’s her least favorite part of it and has discouraged her from using them more often, but also admitted that when her and her husband used to go all the time, it was a lot quicker to put the kayaks together because they had more practice.

I can see this being a good alternative to people that don’t have an ideal way to transport or store, traditional kayaks.

Anyways, we got in the water right in front of where we were staying. The sky was perfectly blue, the sun was out, the air was cool but not cold. The kayaks worked great and we didn’t sink or tip over (even though they were a little wobbly) and we didn’t get wet at all. We kayaked around for about an hour. It was really fun and kind of the perfect way to spend the sunny morning. We saw some gray clouds off in the distance so we decided to turn around and head back. We literally missed the rain by like maybe 10 minutes!

The beach was rocky and had a little bit of sand. There were tons of oyster shells and barnacles, lots of seaweed.

We had lunch outside on the deck overlooking the water. We made big, crunchy salads. It was delicious. The water was calm and there was a light breeze mixed with some rain sprinkles.

Then we kind of spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the couch watching chick flicks and watching the alternating sunshine and rainy stormy weather outside the windows. It was really chill and relaxing.

Dinner was baked chicken and baked potatoes. Then more chit chatting and hanging out. 😀 It was great!

It was such a good way to spend the weekend. It was definitely chill. I didn’t really work out. The kayaking was fun, and sort of active, but not really a workout. I could have maybe gone for a run, but I didn’t feel like it. It was just nice to relax and honestly do nothing for a change.

Sunday we had a leisurely morning. I made breakfast, we drank a ton of coffee. I walked down to the water because it looked like the tide was out and I wanted to explore a bit. The tide was WAY out! The below pictures was right where we were kayaking the day before!

A lot more seaweed that morning. It was a really quiet morning. The water was like a mirror and there wasn’t anyone else out on the water or beach but me. It was so nice.

I wish we could have spent a little more time relaxing Sunday morning before packing up. It was such a delightful little spot to spend time!

So we packed up and refolded the kayaks and hit the road. We decided to make this weekend an annual thing. We’re going to alternate who picks the spot each year. I have to say, I’m already super excited for next year’s weekend!!!!!