A February Trip to Portland

Dan and I have been looking at homes in the Vancouver area.  A realitor sends us emails with listings and we check out the homes.  It won't be right away but we've thought it might be nice to live a little closer to some of the children after retirement.  We've tried to keep our minds and hearts open so we're wise in our decisions.  We found one home that we thought might work out nicely and used that as an excuse to take a trip to Portland.  Dan was actually the one who initiated the idea and contacted Tessha and Patrick about a possible trip over President's Day break. 

With that done, the rest fell into place and I took time off of the pharmacy, got us listed on some flights and make a reservation in Salt Lake.

So, Thursday Feb. 13th after school was over we loaded our bags in the car.  Alisha had decided to stay home so we said good bye to her and we were on our way.  We stayed the night at the Microtel and caught the shuttle to the airport the next morning.  We didn't even have to try for the early morning 6:30 flight.  The nonstop 9:30 flight was wide open.  So nice!!!  I sat next to a young boy of 6 and we chatted most of the way.  He was going to visit his Granpa and Granma and go skiing with them.  He played with my iPad and we did cross word puzzles.  Mostly, I just told him we were "getting closer" and would be there "pretty soon."  He make the flight seem rather quick for me.

Tessha picked us up and took us to a nearby Shari's for lunch.  Melissa, the realitor met us there and we all enjoyed a good meal and reviewed the housing market in Vancouver.  The house we'd come to look at had a sell pending so we didn't even go look.  She told us that almost any decent house with a reasonable price tag was being lapped up quickly.  We called the owner on another house and were told we had to make an appointment to see it and there were already 6 others looking at it.  Since we're not that close to wanting to move we decided to just keep looking and to start looking for a loan if we should choose to go.

After lunch we went to Tessha's and Patrick's place in Tigard.  They have a nice 2 bedroom, 2nd story apt. that they call their "Tree House".  It's got beautiful trees all around it and being up a little higher they have the benefit of being among the leaves.  Of course, the leaves were bare in February but you could still get a similar effect. 

We relaxed and watched a couple of Netflix waiting for Patrick to get home.  Tessha had fixed us a wonderful dinner (I still want the recipe.) and we enjoyed each other's company that evening. 

 

The next day we went house looking in the Portland area and quickly remembered why we didn't move there in 2001.  The homes are all way too expensive for us.  We even looked at little, 2 bedroom homes and found them in the 200-250,000 range.  Sad, but not for us.  So we went to dinner.  We ate at the Claims Jumper and for the most part the food was really good.  I know the desserts were.  Afterwards we checked out the AT&T store before going to the movies.  We saw "The Quartet" and loved it!!  I highly recommend it; especially for us older folks. 

Then we went back to the AT&T store where we changed Dan's phone for an iPhone that Patrick had.  He was giving it to Dan since it is a lot easier for Dan to use than the Droid that he had.  We were all having trouble entering data into his old one and he wasn't able to get Instagram on it.  Patrick had an extra iPhone that he thought might work well for Dan so we had Dan's number but on it and we left the Droid for Patrick to keep. 

When we got back to the apartment, Patrick stayed up to 2:00 in the morning getting every thing just perfect on Dan's new phone.  I had bought him a cover, charger and earphones for it and he was ready to go.  Tessha took us to the airport and again we walked right on to the 9:30 non-stop flight home.  So nice!!  Thank you so much, Luke!!

We took a taxi back to the hotel since they had sent their shuttle driver go home early, got our car and headed north.  The ground was totally white from snow but the sun was shinning and we were glad to be heading home again.  The roads were good; fantastic compared to just a week before when we had to pull over for a place to stay the night.  It looked beautiful and spring is coming.  Besides, it was wonderful to see Alisha again.

 

Thanks for the visit Tessha and Patrick!!  We love you and loved staying in your "Tree House" for a couple of days.  Thanks for all your help with the house hunting and the iPhone!