The Oregon Visit

May be edited later as I recall more details. I use a lot of 'amazing,' 'awesome' and 'wonderful' and that's only because, well, it was.

Tuesday
We flew out Tuesday evening and despite a delayed beginning we dashed to our Houston gate just as they began boarding. (Will, I waved to you from the plane.) We hurried around corner after corner, up and down escalators and through entire sections of the airport. There's a man out there that gave us a ride on a cart the last ten minutes walk. Man on the cart, I love you.

The flight to Oregon felt loooong. It was four and a half hours which, a few years ago, would have been nothing. But I haven't flown in so long it felt forever. The good news though is that I finished Wizard of Earthsea on the flight, and that was highly enjoyable, so it certainly helped me finish the flight (favorite character: Ogion).

Grandma and & I arrived in Portland around 11:35 that night to a balmy 19 degrees. After many hugs and while we were waiting on baggage Amanda informed us that the slider door on their van was stuck. Open. The door was not entirely closed, but the ice was holding the door together and they couldn't get the ice broken. It made me smile - you are never without an adventure when you visit the Wojahns. :)

"The other day I saw the sweetest turkey hat." - Amanda

Wednesday
I was so glad we had arrived on Tuesday night and had a nights sleep before diving into the the week. It really gave us a whole extra day there which was awesome. Wednesday we opened the day with eating at a fantastic local restaurant which only serves fresh fish (delicious). We followed it up with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (Snickers cheesecake) and then the play A Christmas Story that evening which had this amazing set.

Thursday
Thursday was Turkey day! Grandma and I joined the gold goblet club that evening as we dined on Diane's delicious meal. Amanda, Brian & I spent most of the day(s) playing Super Mario Bros. Wii (which is amaaaazing. all the nostalgia and fun of the old games all refreshed.) When I left Saturday we were at World 6.

We sat down that evening for the meal, listened to Christmas carols in the background and enjoyed each others company. Cell phones were off. Just each other and wonderful food. It was nice. They have a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition.

That evening Amanda was looking for more Wii games and noticed the local mall would be open (including Gamestop) so Brent, her and I went and got in line at 11:30 for the midnight opening. We arrived just in time before the huge rush of people hit, but unfortunately the deals there weren't as good as we were hoping. Nonetheless, I'm glad I went out with her.

Friday
Friday morning my Uncle Brent and I went wandering in flower wholesalers! I had looked for an open market (wanting to see the differences of flowers there), but was unable to locate one. Being a photographer he knows all these great places, so we went to a string of wholesalers he had previously been to. But you should really have a wholesale license, so I was a little timid at our first venture especially since it was such a small wholesaler and it was obvious we were new. While it was a no big deal if we weren't buying, I was just a little unsure. But the next one we went into was huge and people wandered freely so I enjoyed looking amongst all their fresh and silk. And as we were walking out I noticed the wholesaler next door was a company we order from in the city, so I happily perused through their store as well. I saw fresh fiddleleaf ferns (veeeery popular in wedding work right now and none of our wholesalers in the city had even heard of them), Sahara roses (which would have been all wrong in a wedding we had considered earlier), beautiful cosmos, peonies out-of-season, greenery that looked like crushed velvet in royal purple.... It was a lot of fun for me. And it was reassuring seeing the trends there for the holidays are ones we're using in our shop here. :)

Then we swung by with the whole family to rescue Diane from evil Black Friday retail work and celebrated with Baskin Robbins (it is not a trip to Oregon without Baskin Robbins). We watched football, booed the Oregon Ducks and eventually had to switch the game off the tv and onto the radio because WE WENT TO ZOOLIGHTS. ZOOLIGHTS, I LOVE YOU. ZOOLIGHTS YOU'RE AWESOME. ZOOLIGHTS. ZOOLIGHTS. (An actual rendition of my internal monologue the whole time I was there.)

Zoolights is held at the Oregon Zoo every year where the entire park is covered in thousands of Christmas lights. Christmas lights everywhere. Lights on trees, lights outlining the carousel, lights in animal shapes... You don't mind that all the animals are sleeping, because the lights are too beautiful.
Of course, not all the animals were sleeping.
We saw two exhibits. As we wandered into the polar bear exhibit suddenly we realized there were no polar bears. PENGUINS. We saw ELEPHANTS and PENGUINS. And LIGHTS. And LIVE BIG BAND JAZZ. At the ZOO. And I was in love. We rode the train. We shared holographic glasses amongst the group. One pair made all the lights look like snowflakes, the entire Santa heads.

We drove home trying to decide if we could eat or not. But we decided sure, we could and stopped at the Old Spaghetti Factory where I learned there are spinach pasta shells (Spinach Tortellini, deliiicious) and also had spumoni for the first time (pistachio/chocolate/strawberry, deliiiicious). And then utterly, utterly stuffed we drove on home for the night.

"Whoa! I gotta drive with these things! Look, blinking Santa heads! Santa heads everywhere!" - Brian


Saturday
Saturday was it. We were to fly home in the afternoon. :(

As a final lunch we ate at Five Guys, a hamburger chain that is apparently really, really well known for their hamburgers. And they were indeed really good, but man, they're fries were the best. And off to the airport... We arrived early, but it gave us time to roam the shops where a Powells was located. Grandma and I needed books for the flight home, so it worked out perfect. I glanced through the Science Fiction section, since they had obviously paired it with Fantasy. Nothing caught my eye until I saw Ender's Game, highly admired and discussed by my friends and one I knew I did need to read. I almost didn't - I was never a fan of reading sci fi, but wow I'm so glad I did. I had no idea what to expect but I was suddenly completely consumed by the story and actually concerned for the characters well-being throughout the whole flight. Due to lack of sleep, I was able to finish it last night. I'm so glad I read it. An immediate jump to top ten books ever and will probably edge out Perelandra.

"What do you mean, 'do I want to leave the beaver hat on'?!" - Amanda

And now we're home. Portland, honestly, feels like my second home. I love it there. There's mountains, ocean, forest, city...all within hours of each other. I love staying there. It's almost a refuge and its perfect.

So my Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had the opportunity to see family we don't often get to see, at a holiday we've never had a chance to celebrate with them before. We loved each others company and had the time to take in some awesome places and events. Indeed, it was perfect.