Birthday Recap

Hello all!

I am back from my excursion to Portland, ME and my birthday celebration. It was such a wonderful day, so nice to get away with Eric but also really great getting messages and calls of birthday love from family and friends. I really felt so full of love yesterday, it was wonderful!

We arrived in Portland around 2 p.m. and had 2 hours until check in. We decided to park the car and take a walk around. It was a really nice afternoon, the sun was very warm but the breeze was cool; perfect weather for exploring! Our first stop was at Stonewall Kitchen, they have great jams, dips and different bake goods and it’s a fun shop based out of Maine. I went in there because I knew my mom loves their Hot Pepper Jelly so I decided to buy her some 🙂 After that we just cruised up and down the different streets. We walked by a cute furniture and home goods store and I loved the chairs displayed outside so I asked Eric to take my picture

After about an hour of walking we both started to get thirsty and hungry, we found a cute cafe and bought iced teas and sat on some benches for a few. On our way back the hotel we found an L.L. Bean where I purchased a new Nalgene bottle (bpa-free).

We checked into the hotel around 4 and crashed for a few before heading out to dinner.

Not a bad view from our room 🙂 So around 5:30 we headed out to dinner at David’s Restaurant. Their menu was what drew me to the restaurant, I liked the fact that they had a “Simply Grilled” section. We got a table outside, looooove dining al fresco, and began our meal with the following :

Red Sangria for me

and a Bud Light for Eric

Probably the best thing about this dinner was our awesome waitress. She was soooo accommodating and answered all of my questions. She, too, does not eat dairy and has trouble with lots of oil in her food. She was super helpful in my ordering and made my meal perfect to suit my needs. I ended up ordering the simply grilled salmon with a vegetable bundle (matchstick steamed veggies tucked cutely into a hollowed out zucchini round) and steamed snap peas. I forgot to take a picture because I was so hungry!! Eric ordered the ginger scallion salmon with a balsamic reduction and wasabi mashed potatoes..he’s the more adventurous eater 🙂

A few pictures from where we were sitting:

After dinner we walked around a bit before deciding exactly what to do. I, of course, needed a little something sweet and ended up finding a Gelato shoppe 🙂 I got two scoops of Very Berry Sorbetto (which is much different from typical American sorbet) and it was delicious. Eric and I not being huge night life people, we ended up opting to go see a movie at the cute Portland Nickelodeon. After a bit of debate we decided on Despicable Me which was SO CUTE! I actually couldn’t get over how much one of the cartoon characters looked like I did when I was a kid.

It may only be funny to me but really, there I am!

Ok so that was sort of the end of our night…we both were kinda wiped out and just wanted to head in and relax. We woke up slow, for us, and made it to breakfast around 10 a.m. We got breakfast at this cute place called Good Egg Cafe. It was really cute and the menu wasn’t overwhelmingly huge but had some really great offerings. I endedup starting off with a cup of Irish Breakfast Tea

and for my breakfast I went with the Good Egg Diet. This meal was two poached eggs atop their homemade honey whole wheat english muffins and a choice of one veggie and one cheese. I went with spinach, added some portabella, and for cheese went with goat.

It was really so good but I unfortunatly wasn’t feeling too great at this part of the day so I couldn’t fully enjoy my meal. My tummy troubles led to Eric and I foregoing our photo excursion to Ogunquit and just heading home. I was sad to miss out but that just gives an excuse to go on a photo-trip on another day!

We got back to my house and took a quick hour-ish nap on my teeny twin bed before being awoken for presents! My mom and dad hadn’t given me my gift yet so that was another birthday surprise.

They gave me a really cute yellow top that I had picked out with my mom at Anthropologie in CA on our trip in May, a Loft giftcard, and this cute Vera Bradley wallet

I loooove this print! So fun and vibrant 🙂 A few moments later my aunt arrived with another birthday present which happened to be the Vera lunch tote in the matching print 🙂 Its great because I have really been wanting a reusable lunch bag and almost bought one in Maine.

After we finished with present time Eric and I headed out, stopping on the way to run a few errands and hit up the grocery store. We decided to make our own dinner after wayyy too many nights out in the past few days. Dinner was roasted mushrooms, red peppers, butternut squash, and baby carrots

It was accompanied by brown rice, grilled chicken, and one of these guys

My fav!

While we were cooking we were surprised by one of my favorite little visitors:

Eric’s niece, Riley!! This photo is courtesy of her dad, amazing photographer, Dan.

She was a perfect end to a wonderful birthday. As for now I have a tired boyfriend who’s really asking if we can go to bed (“is it bed time nooooww'”), sometimes he’s really like a big kid 🙂

Have a good night everyone!

-Em