Travel woes

Today is day 2 in Portland. Getting here was next to a nightmare though. Brad, Cayden, Scout the dog and I left Naarden at 6:45 am on Thursday and headed to Schipol airport in Amsterdam. We were suppose to get on a 10am nonstop flight to Portland with Scout in cargo, but as we're checking in with Delta we're informed that they don't ship dogs between April and September, but Brad was still able to make a reservation for the dog, so he was considerably and understandably upset. After some time we were going to get on a flight at 1:25pm that connected in Vancouver, but that didn't work out, so we got on a 12:50pm flight that connected at Washington Dulles and would take Scout the dog.

The flight to Dulles was okay (last minute though. After everything was said and done and Scout was checked we were the last people to get on board the flight!). We had a 2 hour layover in DC where we took Scout out for a while (in nearly 100 degree weather) and got on the plane for last leg of our journey.

Well, 3 hours later we're still sitting on the plane in Washington! There was a storm coming from the west that was causing delays so after we got on the plane it was pretty much a waiting game. The storm was moving east and heading towards us so we had to wait for it to pass. Initially we were going to be rerouted on a southern route that would have potentially taken 8 hours, but we ended up waiting so long that the storm passed over us and we were able to make the 5 hour flight to Portland. Of course because of the 3 hour delay we weren't expected to land until after midnight.

When we did get to PDx, we had to stop at the car rental place and naturally none of their computer systems are working so it took forever before we could get the car. We finally made it to the house and had to set up the air mattresses that someone had dropped off for us to use. Once that was done we noticed that there was a periodically beeping noise coming from somewhere in the house every 4 minutes. We spent about an hour looking for that while Cayden was bouncing off the walls and finally decided to move the beds into the only part of the house where we couldn't hear the beeping. It was 3:30am by the time I fell asleep and 6:00am by the time I woke up! (FYI, the beeping was coming from inside the refrigerator. It needed to be reprogrammed or something).

The next the movers came with some of the stuff that Brad and Mary Beth had in storage and the day was spent unpacking. A fitness room was installed which I am really excited about with some weights and an Elliptical machine. Brad's mom, Dawn also arrived on Friday to stay for a week to help me while Brad is away on business. Since then we've pretty much been unpacking and setting things up around the house. Brad has been showing me around while we've gone out to run errands. Forest Heights is a nice little area, very suburban. It's not biking or walking distance from downtown Portland (or I could bike but it'd be all uphill on the way back) but it's a relatively quick drive.

Speaking of, I'm driving a Toyota Corolla until my car arrives and I really like it! I don't know the year but it's fairly new, probably no earlier than a 2009. Maybe that'll be my next car!

I'll write more later. Dinner is nearly ready and the dog just ate food out of Cayden's plate!