Sunday Brunch

A few days ago I read an article about this restaurant called Aquariva here in Portland that I've heard about before but never had the opportunity to go try. The article was about their "Build Your Own Bloody Mary Bar" where they provide you with over 25 ingredients to literally add to and make your own Bloody Mary for just $4. Now I am pretty serious about Bloody Mary's and I have a friend Hannah who is also real serious about them as well so we made a plan and headed there early this afternoon for brunch and Bloodys (Ha, sounds British!).
First of all.....I am 25 years old and have NEVER had an experience with valet parking. Well, at Aquariva VALET is the ONLY choice you have. It's free which I guess is nice but totally throws you off your game when someone runs up to your car and tells you, "it's fine here then". Mkay...so I just hand you my key and hope to get my car back? Riiiiight. 
We giggled the entire way up to the door about how awkward we acted during our first valet experience.

The restaurant was very swanky and nice (right on the river) and after laughing more about how the hostess needed to ask ME (just me) if I was indeed 21 years old; we were seated at a bar table by the river and actually pretty excited for our brunch. We both ordered our Mary's and felt UTTER excitement when we approached the "bar" (a table LOADED with goodies for our drinks) and stuffed our vodka with all sorts of yummy veggies and spices. They HAD everything people. Even down to prawns and limes on a skewer and BACON!

Here was my finished concoction:

And let me just tell you.....they were delicious. Aquariva also has build-your-own mimosa bar as well which Hannah partook in but I didn't make it through my Mary fast enough to try. I think it was that GIANT pickle I added that slowed me down but was SOOO worth it.

We also had some delicious brunch....don't worry, we aren't just "full-blown ladies in the afternoon drinking " .........ALTHOUGH. 

This is what our amazing scramble looked like:

All in all I thought it was a fantastic place to go and such a success for a ladies brunch. Plus no matter what, it always feels good to hang out with a good girlfriend and just hash out all the things on your mind. I'm realizing more lately that I truly need those times because as much as I love my fella; he just doesn't understand everything that's on my HEART.

But speaking of that fella.....guess what we put in the crockpot this morning for dinner tonight?

So yummy and easy. Pretty excited to see it after SEVEN hours of slow-roasting in the crock pot!

Happy Sunday.