I had the privilege of meeting Bill Schonely on Monday night at the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame Induction. For those of you not familiar with Mr. Schonely (or Mr. Rip City as he’s fondly referred to around here) he was the voice of the Portland Trailblazers, our local NBA team, for many years. He coined the term ‘Rip City’ for the team and city and is also famous for saying, “in basketball, as in life, you’ve got to make your free throws.” He’s pretty much a Portland institution. When Taylor, Christina and I got to the induction ceremony he was the first person to walk up to us and introduce himself: “Hello, I’m Bill Schonely, how are you ladies doing tonight?” Such an amazing guy and it was truly an honour to meet him.
I probably should tell you how the three of us got invited to this special Portland sports event. Taylor’s Uncle Chuck is the president of the Board of Directors for the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and kindly invited us to join him at his table. It was a really fun night! We got all dressed up in our little black dresses (every girl should have one) and headed over to the event. It started with a social hour in which we got to mingle and meet some pretty incredible people – past Olympians and some legendary Oregon athletes and coaches.
After the social hour we headed to the dinner and induction ceremony. The food was delicious and has definitely triggered some ideas for recipes to share with you all! Bill Schonely was the emcee so got to listen to him talk all night (what a voice!) and we got to hear some stories from the athletes/coaches/sports pioneers being inducted. It was a truly wonderful night and I’m so lucky I had the opportunity to go.
Going backwards a little bit, I had a pretty incredible Sunday with some of my favourite ladies.
We had a day full of toasts, little pink bags and some fantastic food. Before I talk about our day let me just take a second to brag about my best friend.
Mary has been accepted into grad school at Rutger’s University in New Jersey!! 🙂 She’ll be getting a Master’s in urban planning and I’m so, so excited for her. I can’t wait to see all of the incredible things she’ll be doing and I’m extra excited for a reason to take a trip out to the East Coast!
But back to our Sunday adventures. Our little shopping trip and pink bags will be our little secret, but I can tell you about the fabulous dinner we had at ¡Oba!. ¡Oba! is a Latin-fusion restaurant here in Portland and it has quickly become ‘our place’. It would be a pretty safe bet to say that many more of our girls nights’ will be taking place there. The food is good and the margaritas are great (get the blood orange, you won’t be disappointed). They have so much good food to choose from, but an absolute must is their table side guacamole. They come to your table and make the guacamole, to your specifications, right in front of you – so much fun! We took advantage of the all day happy hour they have on Sunday’s and weren’t disappointed. If you live in Portland, go. And if you’re ever visiting Portland, put it on the very extensive list of Portland restaurants you should go to.
The recipe for The Oregonian is up on their website! You can find it here and I’ll post it up on the blog in a couple of days so you’ll have easy access to it.
