Our Portland Get-away

By MAGGIE WANG

Kevin and I had our first get-away this year without the girls. It was a much needed and very enjoyable trip -- even though we got pelted by hail!

We headed up to Portland, Ore., (my first time there) early on Sunday for Kevin's Monday (March 9) Lakers game. The minute we got off the plane, we hustled downtown to Bluehour for a yummy lunch and then walked around the Pearl District and Northwest/Nob Hill area for some shopping.

Portland reminded me of a small-town San Francisco. The major difference was the weather. The city would be beautiful and then out of nowhere, everything would change. It was the strangest yet neatest thing.

Our goal Monday was to get up early and shop at the Nike employee store in Beaverton for a couple of hours before going to lunch at Jake's Crawfish downtown. Well, we never made it to lunch. We ended up shopping at Nike from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., spending more than $1,000 and leaving us not much time to eat anything before Kevin needed to leave for the game. However, it was well worth it: The store Kevin has hyped for years as so great was everything I had dreamed it would be!

While Kevin covered the game, I got to relax in the hotel room and watch "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on DVD and drink hard cider. What a relaxing night!

On Tuesday, we woke up for some brunch at Mother's, a famous diner there. I had this tasty crunchy french toast with corned beef hash, and Kevin had homemade pancakes with apple sausage. We had a little time to kill before the flight so we headed to Nordstrom and purchased some jeans to take further advantage of no sales tax in Oregon!

I really enjoyed some alone time with my hubby and hope that we get to do it again ... even though I really missed our girls, who did pretty fabulous without us at A-Gong & A-Ma Ding's house.

Today, while Kevin continued on the road in Houston eating fresh boiled crawfish for lunch at Ragin Cajun (I'm such an inspiration to him!), I was back home and got to bring Sedona and Maven to see Charlotte Diamond (songwriter of "Slippery Fish") in concert. Sedona was mesmerized, and Maven danced along.

Before I go, here is just an adorable picture of the girls today!