I have one goal this weekend and that is to get caught up on my blog.

Starting off with our epic Spring Break trip. We’ve never really had a chance to do anything for spring break but this year I had plenty of vacation to take the days off so I thought why not and lets go to the Coast. Can’t believe this was already 2 months ago!

With my new low-carb lifestyle I knew traveling would be a challenge so before we left I made a bunch of sugar free gummies with jello and gelatin. Jaelee and I had a blast making them. It is super easy and they taste really good.

We left on Saturday the 24th so we could get as much time as possible. Usually when we go to the Coast we go right to Grandma & Grandpas and skip all the touristy stuff. This trip since Greg was not going with I wanted to take our time and do some of the tourist stuff. We drove to Portland first to spend the day/night.

Our first stop was at Multnomah Falls. It was a bit rainy and pretty packed with people, also you can no longer go up to the bridge but it is still so cool to see. We waited a bit to get a spot at the edge of the railing to get a good view and took a few pictures and then headed to Portland.

In Portland we had to stop at Ikea, man I just love that store. I got a few little things because that’s all I could fit, LOL.

After Ikea we went to check into our hotel. I thought it would be fun to stay in a fancy hotel downtown. I got a good deal through hotwire on a downtown hotel. That’s where the good ended though. I had a heck of a time finding a place to park. We ended up in a parking garage blocks from our hotel, I figured once we got checked in they could tell me where to park. That’s the first thing I asked them about and was told that we could use their parking for $40 a night! WHAT?!?! I’ve stayed in fancy places before and the most I’ve paid is $25, this annoyed me a bit. I was told that I could try and find a parking spot on the street, that the meters were no longer on but they would be again at 6 am so I would have to set an alarm to come down and feed it. I thought no. Anyway then they told me that they had double booked and the room I had reserved was not available and they only had a king bed available. I asked to see it because I wasn’t sure how all 3 of us were going to fit but they said it wouldn’t be available for another hour. Are you kidding me? At that point I just asked to get my money back and I’d go somewhere else.

My best friend was in Portland as well with her family so we met up with them and her college roommate for dinner. We had a great time, conversations were good and the food was great. While there I got on my phone and booked another hotel that was close by. At this point I didn’t care about being downtown. We were in Beaverton and it was fine because we would be heading that way in the morning anyway.

After dinner we were going to hang out some more but first I wanted to check into our hotel. We got there and right away I knew I’d made another mistake. Across the street was an Adult Shop and the hotel was under construction so the elevator was iffy. I always ask for a room on the top if possible because it’s quieter. Well we couldn’t get the elevator to work so we ended up carrying our bags up 4 flights of stairs. Our room was average hotel at least.

We left our hotel and headed back to downtown to my friends hotel. We should of stayed there, it was so cool. They had tiki torches outside and every room had a balcony. There were bowls of starburst everywhere, colorful walls and paintings and the rooms were funky and fun. Oh well.

My friend and I decided to take the kids to Powell Bookstore. It is a 3 story bookstore. Gosh it was so cool. I could of spent a day there but we only had a few hours. Parking in their parking garage was another fun adventure that I’ll skip but I hope you can feel my sarcasm. The kids each got a book and a bookmark. After that we went to VooDoo Donuts. The line wasn’t as long as it could of been, at this point it was about 11 o’clock though and we were getting pretty tired. I didn’t think the donuts looked as cool as they’ve been hyped up to be. In fact Jayse picked out just a regular old maple donut and Jaelee got a bubble gum donut. I think Sugar Shack in Reedsport is much better.

We left my friend and her family and headed to our hotel for a nights sleep. The kids didn’t even get a chance to eat their donuts because it was too late and I didn’t think it was a good idea to eat all that sugar before bed. They dug right into them in the morning though. It sounds like I was complaining alot about this part of the trip but we actually had a ton of fun. The next day to be continued in the next post.