Portland Getaway

I am an Airmiles collector and my 5,000 Airmiles were about to expire at the end of the year so I've been redeeming my Airmiles for merchandise or for travel such as hotels.  Since I had to use them up, I decided to put them towards a Portland getaway during my bday week at the Hampton Inn Portland/Clackamas.  We stayed 3 nights.

It was a brutal 6 hour drive down to Portland and back up again but it gave us a much needed break from the kids.  We basically just shopped, ate and slept.  We found a buffet in Vancouver, WA for a very reasonable $20US/person which included hot crab legs.  My FAVORITE!  All I ate was crab legs and dessert.  We went back to the restaurant twice.  

As for shopping, we did very well.  Take a look at all the goodies.  Most of it was Rich's stuff though.  I'm still on a hunt for new leather boots.

Victoria Xmas Trip

For Xmas this year, dinner took place at Winnie and YJ's place.  It was nice to just hang out and relax.  I realize that we didn't take enough pics this year...likely from all the drinking!  From memory, I think the boys (Gavin included) finished an entire bottle of Tequila?  

We also went to Oak Bay Rec center to take advantage of the free Xmas ice skating and did the secret santa gift exchange.  Drewsie picked out really wonderful scratchies this year.  I won $70 on the scratchies.  

Little Josh had a rash attack this trip and that prompted me to try to find out what caused it.  I suspect it was from cat hair.  I'll have to follow up with the allergist and do some testing.

We managed to visit Mom and Dad's place for 30 minutes this short trip.  Thanks Lin Family for hosting.