Summer whirlwind

Our summer in Oregon has been a whirlwind so far.  It's been wonderful but tiring!  We hit the ground running and don't feel like we've gotten to slow down since despite our efforts to do so.  Each day offers a new thing to do, another friend/family to see, or a chore we need to take care of.  We are doing our best to take big breaths and enjoy it all.  And we are, for the most part.  Today was one of those days I wanted to just sit and veg in front of the TV.  The "to-do" list felt overwhelming.  Colin hit that yesterday.

But again, we are having a great time and those moments just come occasionally.

Here is a brief list of our fun summer events since arriving home.

-  Staying for a few days in Corvallis with my family to help get over jetlag.  Aberly playing with Nana and Papa, relaxing, and helping pick strawberries at Twedt's (a Schwartz family tradition).

-  Going up to Pendleton for a family friend's wedding.  My 31st birthday falls on the same day as the wedding, so it was a bit overshadowed, but still celebrated low-key.  We have a great time up at the wedding which was held at a camp cabin in the mountains. 

-  A trip to Wallowa Lake with Colin's mom and brothers.  The beauty of the area took our breath away and we enjoyed three fabulous days relaxing, playing, shopping in Joseph, and more relaxing.

-  Come back to Bend to stay until the end of July!  So far we've seen many friends, celebrated the 4th of July (I admittedly fell asleep on the couch at 9:00 and missed the fireworks show), had dental and eye check ups, Aberly had vaccinations and well-child exam (perfect health and growth!),  gone to beer tasting events, eaten at favorite restaurants, worked in our yard, gone through boxes and moved more belongings to storage, and so on and so on!

-  A family trip up to Seattle to attend one of Colin's childhood friend's wedding.  We stayed with my Aunt Beatha and had a fun day at the zoo before heading back to Bend.  We were blessed with sunny, warm weather.  A rare thing in Seattle!  We also stopped near Enumclaw on the way up to visit some of my relatives for dinner.

Whew....  a lot but really, it has been great times!  It may wear us out some more, but we look forward to the rest of our summer adventures ahead!

Travel tales

We are home in Oregon and so happy to be here.  After almost 40 hours of travel between the car, plane, and airport time, we made it to my parent's house to stay for a few days before going to a wedding in Pendleton and then a trip with Colin's family to the Wallowas.  After that, we'll be heading to Bend on the 27th for most of July before coming back to Corvallis for August.

Our trip was soooooooooooooo long but smooth and easy.  Aberly was the best traveler and was a champ through the long haul.  She always insisted on pulling her carry-on suitcase through the airport and did a great job following instructions and listening to us as we told her about each step of the journey.  She slept well and spent her airplane time watching a lot of kid's videos on the airplane's personal seat monitors (this was one of the few times in her childhood where we will let her veg out on TV all day!) between some aisle walks, bathroom breaks, meals, and books.  We couldn't have asked for a better trip.

Once landed in Portland, we were greeted by my brother-in-law Kevin and then my mom met us outside to drive home.  We loved walking into cool weather and smelling the fresh air (and we are currently loving the cool, wet weather so far!).  

Here are the highlights and few lowlights of the trip:

-  Highlight:  Kelsey meeting and talking to a wonderful gal from Saudi Arabia.  Great conversation about life, religion, and the world.  She is a recently graduated doctor and although she has lived in Saudi the majority of her life, she started life in Portland and lived there until age 5.  She is going to be in New York for a training in November and December and doesn't know anyone there, so I hope to connect her with my brother.  

-  Highlight:  Picking to travel on Lufthansa airlines for international flights.  First, you get your own personal monitor on the back of the seat in front of you where you can watch movies, TV, and view cameras mounted outside the plane for different views of your flight (recommendation to not view the landing from the camera on the nose of the plane cause it feels just a bit scary as they try to steady the monsterous plane on the runway).  Secondly, they bring you hotel towelettes every few hours.  And lastly, they serve FREE beer and wine with throughout the flight (and give refills) and even offer Baileys or Scotch as an aperitif at one point.  Oh yes please.

-  Lowlight:  Being forced to put my sleeping child in an "upright seated position" with her belt buckled at takeoff and landing.  If you are a parent, you know how maddening it is to risk waking your sleeping baby/child.  The stewardesses on that first flight did not get a friendly reception from me or Colin at those moments.  Something to the effect of "I'll send my fussing child to you later if she stays awake and YOU can deal with her" may have come out of my mouth.

-  Highlight:  Seamlessly maneuvering through the airports, making all our connections, and having no delays. 

-  Highlight:  Getting to move to the front of lines since we had a small child.  Thank you!

-  Lowlight:  Not sleeping on our flights.  You would think that it would be easy to sleep on an overnight flight or on the following flight now that you are exhausted from not sleeping on the first flight.  Unfortunately not for this cowgirl.  We found that the constant movements, noises, meals, cramped space, and care for Aberly kept us just on the brink of being awake.  Okay, Colin did catch catnaps and fared better than I did, but by San Francisco, I felt physically ill from the lack of sleep.  36 hours awake?  In San Fran I finally napped for about an hour in a quiet room and then we all crashed later that evening for two hours at our gate.  

-      -  Lowlight:  Having a 10-hour wait in San Fran for our final flight to Portland.  I'm not sure why that happened when we book online since there were at least two flights on the same airline earlier in the afternoon that we could've taken.  It was a long, somewhat torturous wait but on the good side, it did allow for the napping time.  And we enjoyed two nice meals at airport restaurants.  It still was hard to wait though!

-      -  Highlight:  Being greeted by Kevin (Colin’s brother) at the baggage claim after getting to Portland.  So nice to see a loving face and extra hands to get all our luggage outside.  My mom was there waiting for us in the car and we worked out magic to get everything in her car.

-      -  Highlight:  Feeling settled and happy!  Being surrounded by green and more green.   Being able to sit outside and not roast in the sun.   No humidity and dusty air.  Knowing where everything is, where to buy what we need, and know it will be there. 

-      -  Lowlight:  Jetlagged parents and Aberly.  She was up at 3:30 today….

-     -  Highlight:  Not having to use Middle Eastern shopping carts. 

It really is great to be home and we love seeing all of our families and watching Aberly interact with her grandparents and uncles.  She is doing so well and having so much fun exploring her surroundings here.   Our best description of our feelings of being home is like how two close friends just pick up where they left off when they don’t see each other.  It feels like we just started where we left off and that is perfect.

Home!

We are home in Oregon!  Full blog post to follow within 24 hours, I hope!  Lots to do to get settled and trying to get on track with sleep to get my energy back to full :-)

Much love from the Prices!