dobry den!: portland, oregon

my sister and i were discussing going on a family trip and we had to keep the location somewhere in the northwest since she would be traveling w/ 2 kids and this would be aj's 1st flight and had no idea how he was going to behave. our choices were seattle, scottsdale or portland. since several of us had been to seattle and scottsdale, we decided to plan a weekend trip to portland.

my sister and i were on the same flight which had us arriving at 10am. my parents, brother and his girlfriend's flight arrived at 12p. even though we had arrived 2 hours earlier, with having to wait at luggage claim, taking a shuttle to the rental car and issues in getting our car seats in the van, we all ended up checking in the hotel at the same time!! since we were renting a van the entire weekend, we decided to bring our own car seats instead of renting them (mostly for sanitary reasons). however, aj's car seat didn't make it on the flight w/ us so we had to use a rental seat for the day until the airline delivered our car seat to the hotel.

surprisingly, aj did very well on our flight to portland. my baby nephew, on the other hand, was a completely different story. poor baby, he was just miserable the entire flight. he was the baby that if you didn't know him, would think he was one of those annoying babies that just cries the entire flight haahaa.

we were staying in downtown portland and decided to have a mellow 1st day just walking around and shopping. it is a no sales tax state so we definitely wanted to take advantage of the "9.5% discount".

we had plans to do several outdoor activities but unfortunately, it was raining all weekend so we had to change some of our plans. on saturday, we went to the OMSI (oregon museum of science and industry). it was okay but most of the exhibits had additional costs and it was too young for the kids. we then spent the afternoon at tillamook cheese factory. sunday morning, we went to multnomah falls. unfortunately, aj fell asleep on the ride to the falls and i stayed in the van w/ him while everyone went to walk to the falls. by the time he woke up, everyone was already on their way back. the flight back was much more successful for the kids. =)

although, the weekend was very exhausting and most of us were sick and it was raining, it was nice to get away for the weekend and have aj experience flying and exploring a different city and culture.
if anything, this encourages us to travel more w/ aj.