Father's Day Celebration

It seems that every celebration focusing on BA comes with heavy requests for sushi. With BA's recent dental work, sushi was the only meal he wanted. There are a few sushi restaurants still on our list of must-try and Yama Sushi and Sake Bar was agreed on, due to its proximity to shoe shops and a really good excuse to go for a bike ride. Located in the Pearl District of Portland, with its mix of industrial buildings, new shiny glass towers and good shopping we made a day of it and couldn't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon, let alone Father's Day with our BA.

We never get tired of this view.

The mix of new and old.

Bring on the Food Porn. Sorry no pictures of the sushi. What images we did manage to capture were blurry due to the fury that were our hands when our sushi order arrived. But we can say it was delicious with lots of interesting rolls and fresh ingredients. Japanese food is easily one of our favorite types of food, due to the variety and the deliciousness, such as this terrific squid salad.

One of the best beef yakisoba noodles we have ever had, the beef was tender and flavored perfectly. This was a standout dish of the day.

The bento box was delicious as well, who can resist chicken karaage and grilled salmon served in a cute sectioned out box?

Springtime Garden Party

A month ago our gardener-extraordinaire friends threw a garden party to showcase their efforts over the years, celebrate the springtime, and we even got to take home some potted herbs for our garden. Their home is also like a museum with lots of interesting artwork and Tim's own collection of masks he has been making. It was a nice afternoon with yummy snacks and cocktails in the garden.

Summer Shoe Shopping: Day 2

The second day of what seemed like an endless succession of shoe shopping, started bright and early, this time in the Pearl District, on Father's Day.

After being unsuccessful again we decided to check out some clothing stores, where we had our first major celebrity spotting - the extremely tall Jane Lynch. We kept our distance, she was with her family.

Pearl District equals fancy shoe stores: Imelda's & Louies and Halo Shoes.

Portland is home to the shoe company Keen and they have a terrific "garage" store in the Pearl District. We came close, but decided to continue on the hunt.

By this time Anne was fading so a short stop at Lovejoy Bakery for an uplifting chai tea before heading to Pearl Specialty Liquors, hands down the nicest and most comprehensive liquor store in Portland.

Soon it was time to meet up for a Father's Day brunch with the family. Yama Sushi & Sake Bar was delicious, the sushi was inventive and the bento box lunch was yummy.

At this point we had several shoes on hold, due to the no returns, exchanges only store policies. So we biked home planning to hit up yet another shopping district, but it was all too much for Anne who simply wanted to just hang out in the garden, which turned out to be very "fruitful".

mmmmmm....fruit salad bar for dinner!

All photos can be found on our Instagram @buddhabellies

Summer Shoe Shopping: Day 1

We spent a good part of the last few weeks dedicated to finding the perfect work shoe. One of us (Mike) has a difficult time finding shoes and needs to try on every single pair before buying; while the other one (Anne) doesn't care for shopping or trying on things, but will gladly go along if there are snacks, treats, cocktails and possibly a pair or two of new shoes to be had. This our attempt and success at finding new shoes (2 for Mike) and (5 for Anne).
First up - Manifesto on Mississippi Avenue.

One shoe store down and already tired, time to replenish with an early lunch at Little Big Burger under sunny blue skies!

Next we headed to NE Broadway where several great shoe stores are with many distractions (ie: snacks & treats) in between.

Not successful, so on to the next.

One of us was successful in finding close-out sale shoes, so a celebration was in order.

One more shoe store was all we had in us, and that ended up unsuccessful, so we biked home and decided to treat ourselves to some dinner & soft serve ice cream for dessert!

The streets were packed with people and we soon realized we were in the midst of the annual Naked Bike Ride! It was unplanned we swear!The evening was hot and muggy, so actually a perfect night for a naked bike ride, but we headed home knowing we had another busy day of shoe shopping for that elusive perfect work boot!

Summer Shake-Ups

Late spring and early summer brought many new exciting and not so exciting changes to our lives. We are taking it all in stride and found capturing it all via our iPhones and Instagram to be our new favorite way to stay in touch and remember what we did 24 hours ago! Life moves really fast and we're enjoying keeping up, but looking forward to some summer downtime. Here's some images of our Buddha Bellies life so far. Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of summer! We're sure glad it's finally here! The berries are crazy abundant this year! Thank you rainy, but mild weather!

More evidence of the crazy weather we're having, something quite typical in the Pacific NW - grilling in a sudden rain storm, this time with lots of thunder!

We're re-discovering a favorite neighborhood of ours and an old classic: Sheridan Market, with the largest and best selection of grilling chips we have ever seen!

Butterflies as pets!

Celebratory lunch with an old co-worker meant the best fish & chips in town!

Nothing beats breakfast for lunch mid-week!

It's Copper River Salmon time!

She's still the love of our lives!

An impromptu decision was made when there was no line at Pine State Biscuits!

Sunday morning walks are made better.

Front yard garden.

Kitchen sink shower time!

Unexpected finds! Rerun!

Nothing beats summer cocktails on the patio!