Aloha: A Thousand Steps to Nowhere

Surprise! We went on vacation! I’m going to do my best to break it down day by day while I’m away, we shall see how it goes. I mean currently I am standing in the Shilo Inn Suites in Portland watching my toddler walk around on counters instead of eating her dinner. So basically this could be a challenge. Plus I’m just writing it all out on my phone via emails to myself, so yeah, we will see how this turns out!

So let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start....

I procrastinated my packing until less than a week before leaving. This is a record for me since I love to get started early and then procrastinate. Once I was off work on Thursday I rushed home to get the gang all together and finalize our bags. We thought one bag was too heavy, so it was bye-bye to the beach sunshade, some applesauce pouches and a pair of jeans. Then we were set! Or so we thought... Millicent, my remaining cat, thought it would be fun to escape the house and go darting into the juniper in front of our house. After a cat retrieval we were on our way!

The ride was pretty uneventful. For someone with amaxophobia, this is a good thing. Amaxo-what?? My intense anxiety and fear of being a passenger. Travel is very difficult for me if I’m not driving. I mean I will end up in tears and so tense I can't even talk. I absolutely hate it. I was incredibly happy to arrive at our hotel and be done on I-5!

Check in was a breeze, and wow. Our room stunned me! I had no idea what to expect. I had just simply gone on Orbitz, saw a good deals and reserved a room. But no, it’s not just a standard room. This sucker is huge! We have 2 queen beds, 2 televisions, a really comfy huge chair that I’m sprawled out in right now, a microwave, a fridge, table and three sinks!! This is so rad, it might be my new hotel of choice before my Portland flights from now on!

After getting settled in we decided to go down the road to Target so Katura could run around and shop. That lasted about an hour and she was a really good girl. She left with a new Moana T-shirt, some pajamas and her first baby doll toy. She’s suddenly been really into them at stores, so for less than $4 she got a mini baby doll to play with on the plane. We were super classy and got some frozen food and snacks to cook in our room. This was more appealing than a busy restaurant tonight.

I think we made the good choice. We are watching Family Guy since we don’t have Disney Junior. Katura is turning this place into her own jungle gym. I’ve been messaging with Bobby about football and vacations. Shawn just went into the “other” room to watch something else and lay on a bed. Katura is wandering. Just living the life!

We have an early morning tomorrow, so hopefully I can get the little girl in bed soon. It is currently 9pm. Our flight to Honolulu is T 8am, but we are seriously right down the street from PDX, so we have a very easy drive tomorrow. The harder part will be getting our suitcases, carry on bags, baby, stroller and car seat to the terminal with just the two of us handling it all. We are totally “that family” tomorrow. This will be Katura’s 7th flight, so she’s a pro. Let’s just pray she stays a good girl on our 6 hour flight!

That’s it for post number 1. Tomorrow we will arrive in Honolulu, check in at our second hotel of the trip, and do... I don’t know!! We will find out together!

Ooh, I hear Wedding Crashers on the other tv. I’m outta here. I have some good stuff to watch!

~ ALOHA ~