Well, Saturday was Ed's and my 14th anniversary and to celebrate, we spent the weekend at our favorite hotel, the Heathman, in downtown Portland. We decided to be tourists for the weekend.

On Friday night, we had a scrumptious dinner in the Heathman bar (I'd second the exec. chef's nomination for that national food award!) and then went to see Bridget Jones's Diary. Very funny movie and highly recommended! I loved Renee Zellweger--she was totally believable as a Brit. I loved it!

After the movie, we walked up the street to have dessert in HIGGINS! Yummy! Ed and I each ordered a dessert and then shared them. The winner was the rosemary and lemon creme brulee. Oh man--was it ever good! I was a bit skeptical at the name, but it tasted so good and the lemon and rosemary worked very well. Delish! I'm definitely going to make some creme brulee soon. I think I need to reprise the chicken and prunes from Morocco night and then try out the creme brulee. I wonder who I should invite over for dinner? Stacy is a natural, since she loves that food as much as me, especially the creme brulee.

The next day, after a leisurely morning at the hotel, we had lunch and did a little shopping at Pioneer Place mall (I bought Joey the cutest summer clothes at A Children's Place--what a great store that is! All orange and pink and yellow and lime green. Great stuff.) Then took the Max train to Saturday Market. We spent a lovely sunny afternoon walking around the booths and people watching. I bought Joey a dream catcher at a stall. She's been lamenting her lost dream catcher so we wanted to get her a new one.

After having our fill at Saturday Market, we walked over to Powell's and spent several hours looking at books and browsing through them in the cafe. I bought Joey a book on Dorothea Lange, a Depression-era photographer. I bought birthday books for the Franks's four children all based on Oregon or the Pacific Northwest. Now all I need is to find something for DeeAnn.

We walked back to the hotel and relaxed until dinner time. (Well, relaxed is not the exact right word.) inner was at a great Italian restaurant called Pazzo. I had the best pasta dish--it was papardelle (an irregularly shaped sheet pasta) with a guinea hen and morel mushroom ragout on it. It was so flavorful and the mushrooms were divine! Ed had a very tender and delicious steak. For dessert we had a trio of creme brulees but they weren't anywhere near the quality of the Higgins' creme brulees. We went back to the Heathman and listened to a jazz trio in the lounge bar. It was a lovely end to a lovely anniversary.

This morning we slept in and then went to brunch at another great restaurant (Portland has a lot of GREAT restaurants, I must say!) called Mother's Bistro. I had fabulous egg dish with eggs, corn tortillas, onions, bell peppers and jack cheese topped with salsa and chipotle sour cream. Talk about good! Then we went to the bookstore and browsed awhile until it was time to get Joey.

The whole weekend was just wonderful. We got a lot of exercise with all our walking around and it was a good thing, too, considering the great food we had. I love being a tourist in Portland. I wish I could eat out downtown all the time!

So anyway, that was my lovely weekend with my lovely husband. We had a wonderful time together. It's nice that after all these years together we still dig each other and have something to talk about when we're alone.

--L