A Mom Trip

Sometimes (especially when I have free sky miles) I take a break from my life and head up at my sisters house in Portland.  I love Portland.  When my sister turned 23 she decided she was too old for Provo and that she and I needed to move somewhere.  For some reason we narrowed the choices down to San Diego or Portland.  In the end we decided we'd probably match up better with Portland boys than San Diego boys so we packed up her little Mazda and took off.  It was a magic couple of years.  Then we both ended up marrying Utah boys... irony. 

She just had her 4th baby so I needed to see this boy.  He is a dream baby.  Super easy going and sleeping through the night and never fussy.  How'd she get so lucky?  My 4th was and is my hardest child yet.

 

Her 3 other kids were adorable too.  They are all the exact same ages as my kids (I swear we've never planned any of that) and they reminded me a lot of my own kids.  At the end of my visit Alie asked me if I missed my kids and I told her that her kids were a pretty good reminder of what I'm missing at home so no, not exactly missing them so much.

The first night I was there we went and saw Rhett Miller.  We were super into him back in the old days and his show was great.  Since I'm a good foot shorter than everyone else on the planet it's really easy for me to weasel my way into the front of things and I was able to weasel us to the front row for this show.  Like, directly in front of the band.  At one point Rhett spit out some line and his spit landed on my arm.  Gross and cool.  I told Alie that if I was with John we'd buy a some vinyl and hang out until Rhett came out and talk to him for a bit and get him to sign our record.  But as it was we're just a couple of moms and after the show we were tired and went straight home and to bed.  We're so old.

IMG 1203 from brielle wollenzien on Vimeo.

We did all the typical mom trip stuff.  Lot's of good food 

mani's and pedi's

more good food

lot's of Goodwill shopping with the perfect little man child in tow

 Then we'd take our finds home and completely change them.  This shirt I thought would be cool as one of those baseball shirts that are longer in the front and the back.  So I just cut the sides out.  Then it looked like a french bikini cut.  It looked really stupid.  So after a good 20 minutes of hysterical laughing we cut it all up and made a dress for Ivy with it.  We up cycled a bunch of other things too.  I love that my sister knows how to sew.

 movies at Cinetopia

Do you have one of these in your town?  I don't.  It's the coolest theater in the world.  They have these little living rooms with big comfy couches and chairs that only seat like 20 or 30 people and an enormous IMAX screen.  They also had waiters come and take your order before the movie starts and they bring it in just in time for the previews.  It was so cool. 

I was scheduled to come home on Sunday afternoon but then my flight got cancelled.  I felt sick about it because when I called to tell John I could hear every single child screaming in the background.  Oh the guilt.  My awesome brother-in-law made these Sorry You're Flight Got Cancelled-cookies for me and I felt better.  Let me tell you about these cookies they have chocolate and peanut butter chips, coconut, and pretzels in them - plus a couple other secret ingredients.  They were amazing.  I sneaked a bag into my suitcase and I'm still enjoying them.

 The airline rebooked me for a 6:00 am flight the next morning.  That meant I had to get up at 4:13am.  Nobody should have to be up at the hour.  Especially since I watched Sister Wives on Netflix until 1:00 am.  ( I don't know why )

 The good news though is that they booked me first class.  This is me after sailing right through security past the enormous twisting line of "regular" passengers.  I've been on first class once before because of a similar situation but I had a sleeping baby on me that time so I didn't get to enjoy any of the perks.  This time though was so cool.  Us high roller passengers got to board first and then enjoy drinks with big comfy pillows and blankets while the rest of the plane boarded. 

 I planned on sleeping the whole flight because of the aforementioned Sister Wives incident but between the all you can eat snack basket and this cool little screen on the back of the chair in front of me I was busy the entire time.  Coach is going to be a cruel joke next time I travel.

 

I had so much fun laughing until I cried with my sister.  It's always such an adventure when we're together.  Remember how you revved your Yaris engine at those hipsters in downtown?  Remember that awkward girl on stage with Rhett?  Remember how scared we were when we heard that big guys voice at Goodwill and kept hiding our legs so he wouldn't know we were in there together?  Remember when he thought we'd left the baby in the cart out by the sweaters?  Remember how I stole that polka dot sweater and how I'm going to steal that other blue and purple jacket next time I see you? Thanks Al.

 Needless to say my family is happy I'm back.  Ivy screamed for a full 60 seconds when she saw me.  The best part of these little get-away's  is how good I feel when I get home.  Happy and relaxed and ready to be a mom again.  My husband is so awesome for getting that and encouraging me to go.  Not only encourages me to go but takes care of the kids and the house so that I can.  He is so cool that I made this shirt for him the night before I left Portland.  He thought I had bought it and told me I should have bought another I {heart} JOHN shirt for him.