Living in a new community has been fun, challenging, and I’m *just* starting to feel like I might know my way around and things are starting to feel familiar and routine. I just realized I don’t have to think so hard all the time about navigating from place to place.

I’ve discovered a few new favorite places in Portland and the surrounding areas.

For food my favorites are, Bamboo Sushi, Bete-Lukas, Jacqueline, Toro Bravo and Rosa Rosa. (There are many more – but for the sake of brevity – I’ll leave it here.)

For seasonal activities with kiddos – we have been loving the amount of berries, and other fruits that can be picked. We have been to Morning Shade farm for berries, Echo Valley Natives for native plants for our garden, including some native fruiting bushes. We plan to head to Sauvie Island this fall for our pumpkins and of course we really enjoyed the great corn maze at Bella’s Organic Farm.

The Hoyt Arboretum is lovely, free, and close to the Oregon Zoo and International Rose test garden. For those extra rainy days, we love OMSI,  Powells, Oregon Historical Society and Portland Art Museum.

I’m looking forward to finding more to add to the list. I expect this will be one of many posts as I keep discovering fun new things in my newly adopted city.

-CM