Visit to Portland

Gregg found out that he was accepted to OHSU the same day he graduated from the U of U on May 5th, which also happened to be the same day that I had a video conference interview for a job I'd applied for at the federal court in Portland. The interview and his acceptance was on a Thursday. The following Monday they called to say I got the job! It was a very fast turn around and the job wanted me to start as soon as I could. Because of this we had to hurry out to Portland to look for a place to live and a daycare for Kaylen, try to fit in as much as we could with friends and family, cancel a trip to Vegas with Carissa and Casey that we were very much looking forward to and make a last minute trip to Minnesota so that at least Kaylen and I had a little time with my family. Yeah, seems simple enough in 4 weeks!!! Yikes! A little added stress and very little time to wrap things up and say goodbyes to many people we've come to love.

So, we headed out to Portland to find a place to live just a few weeks before coming out for good. We stayed in a really nice hotel along the river, rented a car and did a WHOLE lot of driving around Portland! We started out with a very positive outlook. We were ready to take on Portland! Little did we know, we didn't know enough about where to look and the renting market in Portland is very competitive!

View from our balcony at the hotel

One very nice treat in coming to Portland was the fact that Gregg knows a couple people in/near Portland and I know one. So both nights we were in town, we met up with people.

This was taken at Henry's Tavern said to have 150 beers on tap and had absolutely delicious food! It was here that we remembered just how nice being in a state/city with Happy Hour is going to be much appreciated!

Gregg and his friend Chele, a friend from high school that now lives in Vancouver, the neighboring city across the river in Washington. I was so glad to meet her! We've actually had the opportunity to hang out a few times since either Gregg or both of us since getting here. She's wonderful and we are very happy to have a built in friend here!

The other friend I mentioned, is my friend Amy, a friend from Jr. High/ High school. Our younger brothers were very good friends and we got back in touch through Facebook. From the minute she found out we were moving to Portland, she has been helpful beyond words! She and her husband, Aaron, have a 3.5 yr old son, Hayden! We met up with them the second night at Deschutes Brewery downtown. Hayden is adorable and a complete ball of energy! We knew meeting him that night that that Kaylen was going to love him.... and we were SO right!

We posted pictures of the enjoyable moments :-) because we didn't take any pictures of the less enjoyable ones! Needless to say the hunting was frustrating and tiring. We were beginning to lose hope the day before we had to go home and weren't sure we were going to find something. We were torn for quite some time between living in a nearby suburb of Beaverton which is well spoke of by many and trying to live closer to downtown. We found a few houses for rent that we liked, mostly in Beaverton. But slowly we started to hear about the nightmare traffic that exists in the commute that we would both have to travel. We were lucky enough to find ONE house just a couple blocks from the OHSU campus that would be ideal for Gregg and a fairly easy commute for me to get downtown. We ended up GETTING the house close to OHSU! We were very excited about it. It's an older home, but we knew that just based on convenience, it would be well worth it! We were stoked about our decision and the fact that we scored the house. There isn't a lot of housing up on the hill where these three hospitals are so we feel very lucky! All worked out! The payoff was well worth the stress of finding this one!

We were also able to check out a couple daycare facilities while we were in town and really liked one that had a decent wait list. Some last minute things came through and shortly after moving here, Kaylen got a spot at the one we'd been hoping for. We ended up having to give up a spot at the YMCA that she would've started if the spot hadn't come through. I say this because just in the hour or so that Gregg was at the Y filling out the start-up paperwork, Kaylen had so much fun and the Director fell in love with her. When I had to call to tell them we weren't going to start there, I was afraid I was burning a bridge there, but she was incredibly supportive telling me how wonderful Kaylen is and that any daycare is going to be lucky to have her. That her previous daycare must have done a great job because she is such a smart, vivacious child. I felt incredibly proud and sad that we had to choose. But we are grateful to have found a place to live that we live as well as a wonderful daycare so that we didn't have to worry!