I Love The PNW:::Oregon

Portland & Vancouver Adventures 

Whenever we go home we spend some time in the Portland area where my family lives and some time in Seattle because....well I LOVE Seattle and my friend Trudi lives up there anyway. I got to Portland on a Friday, had a birthday party on a Sunday, and left for Seattle on a Thursday. Below is a list of our adventures during that time. 

Hanging out at Lola's 

Lola...aka grandma in Filipino, housed us the first couple of days we were in town. After Jellybean's birthday we moved to a hotel down the street. Her house is just way too small for me, my two sisters, my niece, and of course my Jellybean. And I like having room to spread out my stuff. But while at Lola's house, Jellybean got to play with his Aunties and cousins and mom and dad got to take off at night to go on "dates" without having to worry about the little one. 

Pics with his cousin in front of Lola's house. 

Girl's Night

Since Matt wasn't getting in until Saturday, we decided to do a girl's night on Friday. We being me, Jessica, and Trudi of course. My oldest and dearest friends. We've been through just about everything together from middle school drama, college adventures, to OMG we're adults now problems. While we don't talk every day or even see each other once a year, there are no girls that have my back like these two do. Our friendship is that old and that solid. Time will pass and life will happen but when we see each other, I don't at all feel like I need to hold back on anything because it's been so long..... the door is always open and the secrets are nonexistent. To have a friendship like this in my life is one of the things I am most grateful for. Our lives have taken us in completely different directions, with me in the military running around the country with a family, Trudi and Armaan living big city life in Seattle, and Jessica choosing to move from Seattle back to Vancouver to be closer to family, we're kind of all at different points in our lives but for some reason, somehow, we still manage to find a common ground. Sometimes they say that when you have children you lose all your friends that aren't at that point in their lives yet. I can't imagine losing any of my friends that aren't there yet (because that would basically be all of my friends!). Maybe it's the military lifestyle and the fact that we're all spread all over the country or maybe it's just that my friends are seriously THAT awesome, who knows and who cares. 

These girls adore Jellybean and wouldn't ever think about not seeing me because I have a kid and it cramps their lifestyle. If anyone ever did that, well they aren't friend to begin with. And if new parents think they have to only hang out with adults with kids or worse hide out in their homes....well I'll secretly judge them for depriving themselves. ;) Don't get me wrong, it's HARD doing things with a one year old, but it's not impossible. Anyway, Jess and Trudi love my son. They have fully embraced their roles as Jellybean Aunties and wouldn't have it any other way. We went out for dinner and frozen yogurt (really exciting girls night right? But hey, I was adjusting to the time change and uh....kind of pregnant). It was a good time to catch up and just talk. Afterwards, even though it was late, they insisted on coming inside to say hi to Jellybean because there was no way those girls were going to NOT see their nephew. To my surprise he was up and running around the living room with his cousin. Too much excitement I suppose, but that's ok because they got to love on him and he got to love on them back. 

Shopping & Eating Around

I just had to post these pictures of Jellybean pushing a shopping cart around Trader Joe's. There was one between Dollar Tree and Party City so of course I had to stop by for some cookie butter. When my sister pointed out the shopping carts, I knew I had made the right decision! There are a few things I always have to do when I'm in town and one of those things is shop around for local foods that you can't get anywhere else. Tillamook anything just happens to be one of those things. Sure you can get Tillamook cheddar just about anywhere nowadays but that's not all they make and all of it is just as good as their cheese. This marionberry yogurt is my absolute favorite, ok marionberry anything is my favorite and it drives me nuts that you can only get marionberry in the northwest. Just another reason to love the upper left side of the country I guess....the berries! 

Another pit stop I always have to make is at Burgerville. They are a local fast food shop that can only be found within a certain radius of Vancouver, Washington. They choose to keep their products local, never frozen, and super fresh so their franchises never venture too far. Burgerville vanilla milkshakes are HANDS DOWN THE BEST MILKSHAKES IN THE WORLD. They are super thick, super creamy, and the flavor lingers on your tongue. 

Coffee! No I'm not in Seattle but local coffee is still a must whenever I'm home. I stopped by Starbucks and got pretty excited when I saw they had a clover machine! If you don't know what that is, go look it up. It's the best coffee maker out there and it's only at certain stores outside of the best part of the country of course. Here in Virginia the nearest one is in Virginia Beach. Dutch Bros is also a must stop shop for coffee and finally Brewed Awakenings. I used to go there in high school and order....root beer floats. 

Breweries. Drinking local beers is a no brainer in the Northwest. Especially in Portland. We try to hit up a couple new breweries every time we go and we still haven't made a dent! My favorite so far has been Deschutes but this time we went to Widmer. I'm a huge fan of their Hefe. We left Jellybean with Lola and ran off to Portland from some beers and pretzels. (Yes I know I'm pregnant so I only had sips of Matt's sampler) but I ate a ton of pretzels.

PDX

When Matt landed in Portland I made him take a picture of his feet on the carpet. He thought I was ridiculous but did it anyway. He now and will probably forever, make fun of me for making him do that. IT'S A LOCAL THING, JUST DO IT I said to him. That carpet is iconic, timeless, a piece of history that will be going away shortly. Portland is WEIRD. Don't let any other "Keep <<insert random city here>> Weird" slogans get you. Those cities are trying to hard (*ahem* Austin, Texas *ahem*).  Portland doesn't have to try to be weird, it just is. So when people run through the airport taking pictures of the carpet, or people make t-shirts that match the carpet's pattern, or a local brewery makes a label in honor of the PDX carpet, that's not them trying too hard, that's Portland being Portland and I love it! Sure I'm a Seattle girl and I fit in there more than I do in Portland, but I grew up in a P-town suburb. This place will always have a place in my heart that Seattle won't ever be able to take. 

Ok so after getting made fun of for the carpet thing, we met his parents, sister, and niece at a local brewery. McMenamins is well known throughout the area and I've been to a few of them but never the one at the Kennedy School. It's seriously an old school that they turned into a brewery/hotel but they kept it looking like an old school. It's kind of pretty cool to just walk the halls. We left Jellybean with my mom since it was way past his bedtime and I didn't want to deal with a cranky baby at a restaurant at 1100 at night. The beer was ok, the food left much to be desired, but the location was pretty cool! 

NW 23rd Avenue 

This is by far my most favorite street in Portland. People will argue that Burnside, Hawthorne, Pearl District are better, but everyone has their opinion on what makes that street theirs. NW 23rd? Well, I've been coming here since I was 16. At that time not too many of my friends were running to Portland to get into mischief, but I had discovered this fun little street with it's local restaurants, cute clothing boutiques, and stores full of random STUFF at an extremely young age and since I had my own car then, I would escape to NW 23rd all the time. At 16 you don't really have the money to shop at cutesy boutiques but I did a lot of window shopping and daydreaming and when I took my girlfriends there we would fantasize about the day we could walk down a street like that and actually buy something! Poor high school student me couldn't really afford the fancy restaurants but I discovered this little pizza joint where a HUGE slice of pepperoni cost $2.10. It was the best slice of pepperoni I had ever tasted and I've been hooked ever since. When I go home, a slice from here is mandatory! The first time I took Matt to get pizza he figured it wouldn't live up to all the hype I had filled his ears with. Three slices later.....he changed his mind. Unfortunately, this time around, we got there super early when their first pies were coming out of the oven and the crust/cheese/sauce hadn't had time to settle yet so it was kind of mushy. That's ok, I'm a loyal customer and will be back again! 

The Oregon Zoo

I had been holding off on taking Jellybean on his first zoo adventure until this trip. I wanted his first zoo trip to be at the same place I had my first zoo trip. Matt HATES zoos. He complains that the animals are never there and it's too crowded, don't even get me started on our San Diego Zoo visit. But, now that we have Jellybean, he can't really complain too much because these are trips all kids need to have! I mean, what kid is deprived of the zoo??? To his surprise, he actually enjoyed it! I will have to admit that this zoo is probably one of the better ones I've been to. In high school we used to come to the zoo every year at Christmas time to look at the lights. All the animals were out and I'm pretty sure Matt was making just as much oooh and aaahhh noises as Jellybean. The zoo is relatively small but packed with animals and on a weekday wasn't very crowded. Win for the whole family! 

Oregon Beaches 

Although I grew up in Washington State, I am way more familiar with Oregon beaches than I am with Washington ones. Growing up we'd spend weeks on multiple camping trips up and down the Oregon coastline. While we explored numerous beaches, one place was always a must every single summer. Camp Stevens National Park was where I learned to ride a bike, learned to drive a car, had my first s'more, the list goes on. Every summer my ENTIRE family- Aunts, Uncles, cousins, family friends....would pack up, rent several adjoining camp sites, and go camping here.  To this day, they still have a big summer family vacation (yes aunts, uncles, cousins, and now nieces and nephews), go to this area to spend some time together, but they've upgraded from camping to renting rooms at a fancy resort down the street at Seaside. 

Although it was forecast to rain all day, what Washingtonian ever let that stop them from doing anything? I packed up my family and off we went for a day trip to the beach to see the Peter Iredale (an old shipwreck on the beach I learned how to drive on), get some Salt Water Taffy from the Seaside Candyman, eat at Pig 'n Pancake which has THE BEST BACON you will ever taste in your whole entire life, stop at the Nike outlet because that's just what we do when we go there, and then go to the Seaside Beach, the end of the Lewis and Clark expedition. It blew my mind- seriously BLEW MY MIND- when Matt asked me to elaborate on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Growing up where I did, these exploders and the Oregon Trail pretty much dominated elementary school lesson plans. But I get that my Hawaii husband might have studied other things...like spam and surfing...while he was growing up. 

Rip City 

RIP freaking City! While I love everything Washington and all Washington sports, basketball is in a league of it's on. And it's PORTLAND basketball at that. I was never a Sonics fan, nor will I ever be a whatever basketball team eventually comes to Seattle fan. Vancouver, Washington is a rock's throw away from Portland. I was raised a Blazer Believer. My entire family- and I mean my extended family too- is full of Blazer Believers. My cousin was a Blazer dancer for years! Blazer blood runs in my veins, so needless to say, whenever I'm home and the Blazers are playing....you can bet I'll be at the Rose Garden (or Moda Center, but it will always be the Rose Garden to me). When we went to Denver, we saw the Nuggets play the Blazers and in Dallas we saw a Mavs/Blazers playoff game (courtesy of my Blazer Dancer cousin!). We left Jellybean with Lola and off we went for a really run date night watching the best basketball team in the country. I love Blazer games in Portland. It's really all Portland has! So the fans go crazy and are on a whole different level of loyal. 

I love being in Portland but there's always so much I want to do and never enough time to do it all! One of these days I'll get the play/rest rotation down. I think the only solution is to move back... It was pretty fun taking Jellybean around to all the places I used to go to. I envy people that raise their families where they grew up but at the same time, there's a large part of me that's grateful to be raising a military brat. While I love my little corner of the country, Jellybean will get to see so much more of the country than I ever did at a young age. He'll have traveling down to an art and although there are always rough times that come with moving around as much as we will move around, the military brats I know are always grateful for their broad range of experiences as a result of that military lifestyle they were brought up in. And we can always travel home every few years but in the meantime, we'll live in different parts of the states, or even the world! Who can turn that down? 

While taking a vacation with a one year old was by no means easy and often times not relaxing, it was still a whole lot of fun and I'm glad I got to share that with him. I'm glad we took a big family vacation just us three before it becomes just us four. I can wait a little before we head back as a much larger entourage but I'm also pretty excited about our next trip to Portland and this time, with two munchkins running around and driving me crazy.