My parents visited over their Spring Break this year, and we had a blast with them for almost a full week! First off, we picked them up at the Portland airport, and drove to the Oregon Coast for 2 nights. We had a great time window shopping downtown in Cannon Beach (getting some great ideas for our store), and we loved walking out on the park trails to the beach.
Our hotel was directly on the water, and had a great swimming pool that we enjoyed each night. Unfortunately, we managed to get our usual fare of hotel rooms. We were awakened at 9am by a POUNDING above us. I thought that someone must be hanging picture
s, but it just kept going and going! I jumped out of bed and called the front desk, and was told that they were re-carpeting above us. OH...OKAY....SOO....UMM....WHAT?!! Were we just supposed to roll over and ignore the pounding directly above our room? I said, "So, what are you going to do about it?" They said, "Oh, nothing. It's routine maintenance, there's nothing we can do about it." So, hmm...how routinely do hotels re-carpet rooms when they are guests staying directly below? What lame customer service!
We were staying for another night, and the next morning we figured they certainly wouldn't be
re-carpeting since it was a Saturday. OH...did we think wrong! They started at 6:30 am on Saturday!! I called the desk, and they said they'd look into it. I asked them not to call me back, hoping that Ella might sleep through the pounding this time. The next day at checkout, the hotel strictly denied that they were re-carpeting, and said there couldn't have been any noise. So...what the heck was that pounding that went on and on for hours? And why didn't they look into a customer complaint? Luckily, my parents stayed in a different building of the hotel, and they had a wonderful visit. I don't want to sound completely ungrateful, because other than being woken up early in the mornings (yes, 9am is
super early by our clock...), it was a nice stay in a beautiful location.
But, overall, Jared rated that as his worst hotel experience ever (probably because he is a light sleeper, and he was absolutely miserable). I, on the other hand, rate our Victoria B.C. hotel door being busted down as my most terrifying hotel experience ever. Of course, I'm scarred for life, and am seriously tempted to move large pieces of furniture in front of many hotel doors as a safety precaution. And at least that 4 Star Hotel apologized, and gave us 3 free nights overall, 2 of those being in the top floor two bedroom $350+ suite...but that's another story for another day...
Anyways...as I said, our t
rip with my parents was fabulous, overall! We loved seeing them, and Ella was absolutely smitten by her Nana and Papa! We celebrated Easter early by dying eggs, having an egg hunt in our apartment, and then rolling the eggs at the park. The Saville Family tradition is to roll the hardboiled eggs so they crash into each other, breaking them up, and making it easy to peel and cook them up at home into a Creamed Eggs over Toast meal. When we were older, we'd toss them in the air, with the goal to hit each other's eggs, and other similar egg-cracking games. It was wonderful to have the traditional meal for the first time in a loooooong time!
We also had an early Birthday party for Ella with both the Saville and Lybbert grandparents! Ella had great fun trying on all of her new outfits...she's such a cheese!
For the next 3 days, we will be on the road to ALASKA!! Here are some basic questions people usually ask us about this trip:
f wildlife! My favorite was the cow that was walking in the middle of the street. We drove up right next to him, and I have a picture of Jared looking nervously at the camera with a cow staring at him through the open window. We also saw a bear eating a carcass of some sort (he wasn't too fond of us watching, and pounded his fist at us). We've had black bears walk up to our car and smell our tire before, and we've stopped for countless amounts of Bighorn sheep (we usually just drive on by, now)! These are some of my favorite photos of wildlife I've gotten on the drive in past years.
Oh, and most of these kids aren't mine...
Without a hairstylist that I like to visit in Skagway (since there is only one choice!), I have resigned myself to chopping my hair really short before leaving for Alaska this year. This way, by the end of the summer (when 6 months have passed), it won't be so dreadfully long and impossible to deal with! Besides, shorter hair is so much easier to wash during my short-lived showers (before I run out of hot water every morning)!
Our hotel was directly on the water, and had a great swimming pool that we enjoyed each night. Unfortunately, we managed to get our usual fare of hotel rooms. We were awakened at 9am by a POUNDING above us. I thought that someone must be hanging picture
s, but it just kept going and going! I jumped out of bed and called the front desk, and was told that they were re-carpeting above us. OH...OKAY....SOO....UMM....WHAT?!! Were we just supposed to roll over and ignore the pounding directly above our room? I said, "So, what are you going to do about it?" They said, "Oh, nothing. It's routine maintenance, there's nothing we can do about it." So, hmm...how routinely do hotels re-carpet rooms when they are guests staying directly below? What lame customer service!
re-carpeting since it was a Saturday. OH...did we think wrong! They started at 6:30 am on Saturday!! I called the desk, and they said they'd look into it. I asked them not to call me back, hoping that Ella might sleep through the pounding this time. The next day at checkout, the hotel strictly denied that they were re-carpeting, and said there couldn't have been any noise. So...what the heck was that pounding that went on and on for hours? And why didn't they look into a customer complaint? Luckily, my parents stayed in a different building of the hotel, and they had a wonderful visit. I don't want to sound completely ungrateful, because other than being woken up early in the mornings (yes, 9am is super early by our clock...), it was a nice stay in a beautiful location.
rip with my parents was fabulous, overall! We loved seeing them, and Ella was absolutely smitten by her Nana and Papa! We celebrated Easter early by dying eggs, having an egg hunt in our apartment, and then rolling the eggs at the park. The Saville Family tradition is to roll the hardboiled eggs so they crash into each other, breaking them up, and making it easy to peel and cook them up at home into a Creamed Eggs over Toast meal. When we were older, we'd toss them in the air, with the goal to hit each other's eggs, and other similar egg-cracking games. It was wonderful to have the traditional meal for the first time in a loooooong time!
