Portland Trip- Day 1

I have been asked about our trip out to Portland a number of times now. Here is the rundown of the first day of our vacation.

5:08- After realizing Ross had set the alarm to 4:30 pm the night before, we rushed around to get out of the house. We were on the road around 5:20ish. We got to bed around 12:30 the night before after tying up all the loose ends before the trip.

6:30- I dropped Ross off at the airport. This is me wondering if I can really do this whole driving 12 hours with 2 girls and 4 hours of sleep all by myself thing.7:30- wondering what I was so worried about. My girls are amazing. Also- Ross missed his flight and was transferred to another later one. 8:00- Making good time!

8:30- Remembering why it was so easy to move away from Idaho. . . 9:30- Wondering how I could have forgotten how incredibly cute Bambi is.

10:30- I was pulling into Boise at this point and was wondering if it was too early to order the chicken nuggets Emma wanted. It wasn't.

11:30 I contemplated stopping at this point just after getting lunch with the girls- but they were both sleeping so good that I just couldn't waste that time on the road.

12:30- I drained a second giant cup of Dr. Pepper to keep myself going. I have to say that it worked pretty well. I felt much better after getting all of that caffeine into my system.

1:30 I have the best babies! They were seriously so good! We stopped once for lunch. They got out of the car for an hour, and were just find getting back in. I stopped two other times the entire trip- once for about a minute to fix Emma's straps, and once to fill Sara's bottle and open a bag of cookies for Emma. They only ever got out of the car once during the whole ride. They were AMAZING!!

3:30- I was singing along to something at this point- Pippin I think. I saw this around 4:00. I thought it was interesting.

4:30 I was starting to regret all that Dr. Pepper about this time. I considered borrowing one of Sara's diapers.

5:30- I'm starting to lose it a little bit. I really wish I had gotten more sleep the night before!!

This is about 30 minutes before I got to Portland, and about 2 hours before I got to my hotel room. I am serious about that. I hate driving here! The streets are all one-way, they all have similar names, and they all lead to some kind of freeway if you stay on them too long. It was insane. I have never been so tired or frustrated in my entire life. I could feel myself starting to slip mentally because I was just so tired. I called Ross and made him stay on the phone with me to help keep me awake. I realize now that I should have just pulled over for a little bit- but I was just so close. . .

I was on the phone with Ross as I tried to find my way. At one point, he walked out to a common street corner, and met me there. It was about 3 blocks from the hotel. He hopped in to drive thinking he could get me there quicker. As soon as I was relieved of the driving responisibility, I promptly gave in to my exhaustion and passed out. It scared Ross a little bit. An hour later, Ross finally pulled into the hotel parking garage. Yes- it took us an hour to get 3 blocks. This was due to a combination of crazy traffic and all the other complaints I had. At least it wasn't raining.

All the effort was made worth it when I saw the hotel room. It is nice! I have never stayed anywhere this nice before. We have a full kitchen with a stove range, and a dishwasher. There is a king sized bed and there is a couch and daybed for the girls to sleep on. I love it. This is turning out to be a very nice vacation, indeed.

I took a shower, brushed my hair, and slept for a good 20 minutes while Ross unloaded the car. After that little cat nap, I was ready to eat something, and to get something good for the kids to eat. Our hotel just happened to be serving free dinner that night in the lobby- so we enjoyed the free spread and then went back to the hotel room. It was a really lame way to spend the first night of vacation, but I had no energy for tourism that night. After watching So You Think You Can Dance (LOVED Jeanine and Jason's routine, and LOVED Melissa and Brandon's hippee dance!), I slept deeply the entire night. I hope the girls were good, because I did not wake up even once.