Oh what a week, so far...

Erg, ok, i'm going to begin this week monday morning... Brunch at Broder with Shannon. Freaking fantastic. Broder is our sister restaurant at Savoy, same owner, same basement, I have a lot of interaction with these folks. We sat in the window seat, giant windows open to the street, on such a lovely morning, it was perfect. I had apple fritters served with 2 eggs, creme fraiche, maple syrup, and a sausage. Shannon had one of their baked egg dishes, I think bacon, onion, gouda, with a potato pancake as her side. I thought my meal as a whole was absolutely fantastic, Shannon thought the same of hers, but that the potato pancake was the definite highlight. I am sorry there are no pictures of this, you will just have to trust us. Go to Broder for brunch, i promise it's awesome.

After this we came back to my house, re grouped and headed to my neighborhood library. I got a card (!) and we looked around a bit, then headed home. Shannon put a few books on hold, I guess this library trip wasn't as exciting as it seemed in my brain. Sophie came along, if that helps. After the library we headed down to Hawthorne to a frozen yogurt place that I always see a million people in front of. We enter, approach the counter and are greeted by two enormous Hawaiian looking men.They explain the self serve policy and we go for it. A wall of soft serve machines and two islands of toppings to put on top. Also a fresh fruit bar. Then you pay by the pound. It was not so expensive, super fun to pick out the stuff you wanted, and i'm glad I came here with Shannon so I could see what was going on. That being said, it was more chemicals and artificial preservatives, and colorings and questionable dairy products than I have put in my body in the last year, all in one ice cream sitting. Call me a snob if you want but I definitely felt the effects later on that evening. After a point it was like a dark cloud settled on me, I was unhappy, with a huge headache and thinking horribly negative thoughts about everything.  Maybe just a sugar crash but I don't know, it was intense. I ended up making tea and going to bed to read harry potter, i'm re-reading the last book, and after a while felt better but I will no longer make crazy exceptions and allow things like that to enter my body. No bueno.

Tuesday was mostly school, more about that later, then I had an awesome dinner with Tonia, I swear, the pizza place in oregon city is one of my favorite restaurants ever. Every meal I have there is epic, this one included. We took a walk along the waterfront, saw a person in the paper mill!!!!!!!!!!!(First one ever, swear to god thought the place was run by umpa lumpas) and then went on to do other things you can ask me about later...............

Wednesday brought a hike, Shannon and I headed out about four for forest park. It was a way northwest hike in the park so we went almost to the turnoff to sauvie island, turned left and went up the hill on Germantown road. This road was insane! It went straight up the side of a huge hill, twisting and turning, with a million cars going both ways. Where were they going? We finally found our parking area, one turn too late and almost bottomed out getting in the "out" section.  Rallied, headed off. The trail was beautiful, incredibly well maintained and very fallish. I wish I could leave this part out but... we followed the trail expecting to do a loop, like it had outlined in the book. The signage was a joke and we hiked about 3 miles when we ended up on a very busy road. Where we were on the maps we found along the trail, what road was this, and where were we exactly were questions that were never really answered. We ended up turning around entirely and following the same trail back. Fine, great, we made it back. But seriously! Get the maps figured out, forest park, what's the deal? Sophie had a great time, anyway.

It was a great, well needed stint in the woods, for sure. The sun was beaming through the trees, giving heat to the otherwise cool forest. We made it out before dark, thank goodness, that would have been scary.