Here's a long description of our trip to Vancouver and Portland. I worked on this while Josh was napping today.

We got back from our vacation yesterday evening. I was beyond exhausted. If it weren’t for Josh, I would have gone to bed shortly after getting home. But instead I was up until 10pm putting him to bed and getting ready for today. I can't seem to get him to stay up much later than 9pm. But 9 is better than 8pm and much better than 7:30. Anyway...

Where to begin! We left Wednesday afternoon for the airport and caught our flight without incident. I was worried Josh would cry the whole trip but he really only cried the first half of the DFW to Houston flight, which was about an hour long flight. He was cranky and didn’t want to be in his car seat. We were allowed to hold him in our laps during flight- which was a life saver to us and those near us! I managed to get him fed using a bottle in the airport before leaving Dallas and mostly again in Houston. As we were boarding our flight in Houston, we ran out of time feeding Josh. I fed him from the breast on the plane before take off. He fell asleep without much of a sound and was out for the rest of the flight. We landed just fine, found Matt at the airport and got to his condo in no time.

I knew he had a small place, but the smallness was still unexpected once getting there. It seemed smaller than his Deep Ellum loft (which was the coolest bachelor pad I’d ever seen!) but his place was cozy and warm. And tall. The tall ceiling didn’t make it seem too cramped. Rusty & I slept in Matt’s bed while he crashed on the sofa. Just as I feared, Josh woke up several times that night either wet or hungry or just awake. I got maybe 4 hours of good sleep. At around 5am Rusty and I were whispering about whether we should go to breakfast or stroll Josh around the neighborhood. Then Matt said, “Why don’t we all go to breakfast?”

We walked all around the neighborhoods until the Elbow Room was open. I had a fabulous spinach, ham, mushroom and muffin dish with pouched eggs on top. I was so famished by breakfast that I ate every single bite and stole Rusty’s toast and orange slice. One great thing about Canada- they put peanut butter on their toast as much as jelly. Here, places only provide jelly, which is ok, but peanut butter is the bomb! I dig that.

Towards the end of breakfast, Josh filled his diaper with poo. We heard it along with the grunting that Josh was doing to fill it with more. We scarfed our remaining meal and hurried back to clean the babe. We decided a shower was the best option for cleaning. Matt held the shower nozzle/hose while I held Josh. Aww- baby’s first shower! He was all happy and clean afterwards.

We proceeded on our walk going all over the place. We reached the beach then headed up hill in a search for coffee. We found some small café that happen to have a small group of other new moms toting their babies. I felt I was in good company. I didn’t feel bad that Josh woke up crying or that my stroller stuck out from the walk-way in front of the bathroom. I was only one of several other moms. Power in numbers!

I was getting a sore on my foot from my shoes rubbing on me so we walked further on to find socks. We finally found a Payless Shoes and got some funky polka-dot socks for me. Ahhhh! Matt planned to take us to a nearby pub for lunch but they wouldn’t allow us in with a baby. “He’s underage” they said. Well, yes, he is! He’s also sleeping and wouldn’t think to sneak a drink illegally. Our logic didn’t work on them. It was some silly ordinance. But luck would have it that we’d find a sushi place a few doors down that was super yummy. I’ve decided eel sashimi is- I can’t think of a comparison that accurately describes the deliciousness.

We pit stopped at Matt’s place (everyone napping for a bit) before picking up Oana from her museum. It was a cute small rail road museum in Port Moody. She tells me there’s a ghost hanging out there. I’m more interested in that than rail roads.

The ride back into Vancouver was wrought with crying baby. We stopped at a library to let Josh get out of his car seat for a moment. Little did we know it was a demonstration of the road trip on Friday. We walked through the park that Matt sometimes walks through on his way to work. We got to meet his squirrel friends. These squirrels are wacky. They KNOW who Matt is and come running to see him. They also know he probably has nuts to share.

That evening, we decided to put Josh to sleep then head out for dinner. A few blocks from the condo, we ate at some restaurant decorated like trendy-gothic. It has some neat sculptures, candles everywhere, iron gate on the door, wait staff with semi-punkish style. Oh yeah, and the food was good. I had salmon.

That night a miracle happened. Josh, for the first time, slept through the night without a budge. I was the one who kept waking up thinking he should be up by now for a diaper change or feeding or something. Nope! He slept from roughly 8pm to 6am. We got very well rested, which was needed for the road trip to Portland. Matt made us some tasty potato perogies with onions and sausage. Num-num!

Josh was cranky off and on during our trip to Portland. Sometimes he slept, often he cried. We finally broke the law and took him out of this carrier during some portions of the trip to hold him, play with him and let him see out the window. Traffic was steady and not too fast in some stretches so I wasn’t too concerned. There’s just no way we could have gone through our trip with him screaming for hours on end. However, in Portland, we didn’t take him out in the car no matter what. I guess I saw the road trip and slower highway driving as safer than in-city drivers. On the way, we told Oana all the Lee stories we could muster. That was fun. Lee makes for good story telling.

That evening, Lee & Barb took us out for fish and chips. Lee demonstrated that even Portlanders can get lost from ill-marked streets and winding roads with no turn lane. Josh was really cranky at the restaurant (it was his bedtime) but we stopped his crying and got him to sleep before the end of the meal.

Our hotel (Four Point by Sheraton) was great. Friendly staff, nice room, convenient location, and a decent price after I negotiated for a family rate of $89. We had a nice view of the river and the Max Train line.

Saturday! Josh, again, slept all night waking once for a quick diaper change and feeding. There was a bottle fiasco but once the breast out, all was good for everyone involved. I woke up early and showered before Rusty & Josh were up. Ahhh- nice ME time. Our first activity was to meet Sohail and walk around the Saturday market for a while- which we did. Sohail looked good with his newly shaved head. I liked his hair back when it was long, but somehow his shaved head looked natural on him. As if I’d seen him like that before. I’m glad we got to catch up with him for a few hours. Sohail is the type of guy you can have an engaging conversation with or joke/rant about the little things in life. He’s a thinker and a recluse. Not a bad combination.

Rusty & I split for the next few hours. It was overcast and that usually drains him of energy. He went to help Lee and Barb prepare for their house warming party while Matt & Oana picked up Josh & I to hang out at Powell’s bookstore and check out the Rose Garden. Powell’s is an awesome bookstore, by the way. I spent most of my time checking out baby books for Josh (I got three) and quickly perused the parenting books. If I didn’t have the stroller, I would have had more fun going up and down the stairs checking out other sections. Luckily they had an elevator. Next, we had fun walking through the Rose Garden. Matt took a lot of pictures there. After an hour of smelling flowers, we developed a fierce appetite.

Back at Lee & Barb’s, the grill was already pumping out burgers and over-sized hot dogs and mushrooms and other tasty things. I scarfed my burger before Josh woke up from his nap. He had a great time meeting people and being the center of attention among a few folks. I met another lady, also names Sarah, who is getting ready for a homebirth of her own. I shared an abridged version of my birth story with her and congratulated her for her choice to go natural. Natural births aren’t exactly common so I applaud and support those who go that direction.

In the evening, my “cousin” Alysia showed up. I put cousin in parenthesis because she’s technically a cousin by marriage and that marriage is not dissolved. (Real quick history: my aunt married a guy, they had my cousin Luke, they divorced. Luke is a cousin by blood, Alysia is a cousin by marriage even though I consider both equally cousins.) Moving on, I put Josh to sleep around 9:30pm then hung out with the remaining partiers for a couple hours. For some reason, they thought I should have a vanilla vodka coke- twice. We stood in Lee’s kitchen for a long time cracking up over this guy who is obsessed with his hair and has tricks for checking out chick’s boobs. He was a riot to converse with!

The next morning we went to breakfast with Alysia at a little café. There was a long wait and Josh was fussy during breakfast, but we had a good meal and people near us were patient. (Oh yeah- I forgot to mention the Breast Cancer Walk. We woke up to thousands of people walking to support a cure for breast cancer. Which is a bit funny because no one walks to oppose a cure. That made getting out of downtown a challenge.)

Alysia took us through the Chinese Garden at the edge of downtown. We spent a long time there looking at the plants, watching a mah-jong game (non-Taiwanese version!) and snacking on tea, moon pie, a coconut pastry and turnip cake. I didn’t care for the turnip cake, but everything else was good. She drove us around town landing us in a shopping strip a few blocks from Lee’s. Rusty hung out at Powell’s (a different location) while Alysia & I walked around window shopping and strolling Josh.

We spent the night with Lee & Barb waking up before the sun in order to make our flight. Things got a little stressful on our way when we realized we left my purse and a red bag in the bathroom. So we went back for that. We were all stressed that we’d be pressed for time, but we ended up early and without incident. Just as I feared, Josh was awake and fussy off and on for both flights. I was very pleased flying North on Continental but Alaskan Airlines (or maybe it was Expedia.com come to think of it) didn’t have our flight in their records. They had oversold the flight by exactly three seats. They got us on the plane, but we had to trade seats with three guys in order to sit together. If I hadn’t been sitting next to Rusty I’d have been much more stressed and probably put into a grumpy mood. We shared a movie and ate our lunch together.

Last stretch of the trip- paying for parking. I was dummy driving into DFW airport and went through the tolltag lane. Which is great if you’re picking up and dropping off. It becomes complicated if you plan to park in the Express Parking lot. They require a ticket that I didn’t get on my way in. So on our way out they were supposed to charge my tolltag for the parking. Instead, the lady at the gate only charged us one day’s worth of parking. We didn’t argue with her, we just scrounged around our pockets for change and went on our way.

Overall, Josh had a good time. He slept a lot, got held a lot, saw new things. I was lucky to get three nights of uninterrupted sleep and extra hands to help with him. We breastfed in public more than I ever had before (all without too much problem) and handled a fussy baby quickly when we had to. It was a great vacation that, as they all are, was over too soon!