The Hostess with the Mostest...

Today my friend, Tracey, flew in for a visit from California. She'll be staying until the middle of next week.

Eric and I picked her up from the Portland Airport and we went drove downtown and ate at Jake's Grill, this beautiful restaurant in a 102 year old building. The food is great, you get to watch all of the "interesting" people walking around outside the window, and the decor is old art deco. If we had gotten married in the Pacific Northwest, this is where I would want the rehearsal dinner to be.

Then we walked around and I showed Tracey one of my favorite stores, The Real Mother Goose, which has all handmade jewelry, furniture, art and household items. I always visit that store when we go to Portland, and have never bought anything. It is kind of pricey, like the $362 sweater and the $4000 sofa table.
As our lunch settled we headed over to the malls downtown and looked for this cool do-it-yourself frozen yogurt place that Eric and I discovered a few months ago called Chef Fresh. I used chocolate mint frozen yogurt, a ton of coconut, and mini peanut butter cups. YUM.

Back in Longview, Tracey also got to visit our Fred Meyer store and see all of its goodies there. That is a fun store to show people who haven't been there. It has everything. No, really...everything.

The tiredness was starting to weigh in, so we came back, I made dinner and we all relaxed from a while. Eric and I have been watching that new show called A Gifted Man...very, VERY good. High quality scripts without the gratuitous nonsense that so many other shows feel the need to insert. I hope this show stays on for a long time.

And now I'm the only one awake! Tracey's enjoying our small, but very comfortable and well-equipped guest bedroom and bathroom downstairs and Eric is happily in Snoozeville. I'm a wind down person. I need a while of quiet time before nodding off. So I'm spending it here.

Good day, today.

Other things on the roster are church tomorrow, where I'm teaching Relief Society, and one day for the Portland Zoo and another for the big outlet mall in Woodburn, OR. Tracey leaves on Wednesday.

So we've got some fun things planned. All I have to do now is fall asleep and let the new day dawn.