This past week was Fall Break for us so we headed to Oregon to see some of the favorite men in my life - my Dad and my best friend Matt. It was a short trip and we combined two trips in one, visiting these guys and seeing Ian's grandma, Ermel, who we don't get to see very often. Short trips often turn into an adventure and that's definitely what this trip was!
We were supposed to get into Seattle at 1:30pm, and I even booked a rental car for that time, but for some reason while I was at home, I put it in my head that our flight left Phoenix at 1:30 instead. So, we missed our flight. Yep, that's the truth, it wasn't delayed - it was me who delayed it! We called the airport and they wanted us to pay an additional $400 to fly to Seattle and we just couldn't do it, and started to throw in the towel on our short trip. But, my mom came over to take us to the airport (not knowing what happened) and called the airline to find out that if we could make it to the airport within 2 hours of our missed flight, we could go for free on standby. Thanks for telling me that in the first place Southwest! We ended up "home alone-ing" it to the airport just in time to catch a flight that was within our two hours and we were on our way!
(Playing Kings in the Corner on the plane was tough!)
We got to Seattle 5 hours after we were supposed to, layover in Sacramento, and met Ian's cousins Arnie and Whitney at Starbucks to see their two babies (well Emma isn't really a baby anymore). I was so happy we got to see them! They were leaving his grandma's and heading home while we were taking the hour drive to there so we met on the way. Everyone had gotten together to have a nice dinner with us at his grandma's retirement place but since we missed it, they were on their way out. It was really nice to see them and catch up, we hope to see them around Christmas again!
At around 7:30pm we got to grandma's and she showed us to our room, one of the guest rooms at the retirement community. It was awesome! Bigger than any hotel room we could have gotten in the small, military town she lives in, and right up the stairs from her! I didn't want to leave!
(We are messy, I know.)
(Seriously, a flat screen?!)
(Best and biggest shower ever - for wheelchairs but who cares?!)
(Welcome baskets!)
(Grandma Campbell)
(Modeling my new leather jacket and my humid hair.)
(We don't have this in AZ!)
That night we go Subway, because we were starving from our travels, and stayed up and talked to grandma for awhile. She was so excited to see us, we didn't even want to leave her to change from our plane clothes - we just wanted to talk to her for as long as she would stay up. The next morning we told her we'd be up at 7am and when we were up but not ready she texted me, "Are you still sleeping?" She couldn't wait to start the day with us!
(Subways in WA and OR are piloting gf bread. I wish I would have known this on our trip, but Matt didn't tell me until we got to Portland!)
We ate breakfast, anything we wanted, met all of her friends, she showed us around and we even went with her to her exercise class. We were late so when we showed up we had to sit right in the middle of about 30 old people - it was a lot of pressure! It was hot in the room too and I was wearing big boots so I had to take them off and do it in my socks (she said everyone talked about my boots afterwards!) and I was scared to take off my sweater because of my tattoos. (I didn't want to be disrespectful!) The teacher was amazing and there was the cutest old man there in a grey sweatsuit, I loved him. It was my most favorite part of our trip - working out with all the retirees. Loved it, made me feel so good.
After going for a walk and picking blackberries, Ian's Aunt Debbie picked up grandma and she left to spend a week with her. It was such a nice trip getting to visit grandma, staying in our gigantic room and getting to see Aunt Debbie - definitely a trip we will make again!
Next, we headed off to Portland! We got to the car rental place in the afternoon and my dad picked us up, it was so good to see him. I miss him when he's gone and hadn't seen him since the beginning of June! That afternoon as we walked to the store, dad found chestnuts laying on the ground. He asked me if we ever had roasted chestnuts before and I said no, so we picked some up and brought them back to his apartment. We found a recipe, cooked them, and then tried to eat them. They tasted awful! I couldn't understand why so I looked them up online and found out we were eating HORSE CHESTNUTS not sweet chestnuts! And right on the picture of a horse chestnut there was a skull and crossbones - they were POISONOUS! My dad tried to kill me right when I got there! We ended up throwing them out and thank goodness, no one got sick. Too funny - cooking with Greg!
(The car rental guy at the Seattle airport acted like he hated us and mumbled his way though telling us what we needed to do. But, when we got to their off site rental place, we had a free upgrade on our account. Weird.)
(Nikki gets a bath whenever I come to town, I am allergic to her!)
(But I wish I wasn't, she is SO cute!)
We went to Dot's that night for dinner and Matt met us, and breakfast the next morning with Meaghan at Bob's Red Mill the next day (gluten free waffles/pancakes - gotta love Oregon!). After breakfast my dad took us to a spot where he thought we could pick blackberries (we made a cobbler with him once when we visited him at the beach) but they were all dried up. And, we ended up seeing some sweet chestnuts by the tracks too - now those ones we could have eaten! We then went down to a new neighborhood that Matt said had good shopping and walked around. Ian started not feeling good and it was really raining so we decided to head back home. But not before we went to Mac! - a place that all different kids of mac & cheese! It was AMAZING (it is my favorite food, after all) and they even had gluten free noodles!
(We got the truffle one - DELISH!)
Later (after Ian's nap), all of us plus Tammy, my dad's girlfriend, went to the Berlin Inn, a German restaurant that Matt found that had a gluten free menu. I got sausage and an eggplant something and it was ok, although later that night it kind of killed me, I'm not used to mystery sausage. But, the deserts were to die for - peanut butter mousse cake - so good! After dinner we went to Bushwhacker Cider a cider bar and had some yummy ciders that were all gluten free!
The next day we didn't have to be at the airport until 5 so we headed downtown. Matt took the day off and Meaghan met us. I was on a quest for boots, didn't find any, but we did find a TON of food trucks! We don't really have this craze yet in Arizona so it was fun looking at all of the options for lunch. I settled on pad thai (because the lady assured me it was gf), and it was DELICIOUS. I had never really had pad thai before but I'm sure it was the best. You really can't beat eating and drinking in Oregon - if it weren't for the weather we'd live there!
No comments:
Post a Comment