Year: 2022

This must have really been a month to have 5 parts! FIVE. V. Insane.

As mentioned previously we were going a little crazy at home. I went looking on Hotels.com and saw this Coastal Inn by OYO in Lincoln City.

Cost? $34. After taxes.

What?!

Yeah – we booked a night. At that price, we actually booked 2 nights. The reviews were fair, but if it’s even like a motel 6 it shouldn’t be that bad.

It was.

The room was pretty terrible. We booked 2 queens but they were doubles at best. We didn’t have any fan/ac in the room, the heater was a baseboard heater, and it looked like someone tried to break into the rooms multiple times.

I spoke with hotels.com and we were able to get refunded for the second night. We didn’t sleep maybe but an hour or so that night. Where else can you go if you want to stay somewhere nice and not pay a lot of money? Seattle.

So we drove from Lincoln City up to Seattle. We stayed (using Hilton Points) for free at an Embassy Suites. It was much better than the night before. That night we went out to grab food and I noticed with my eyes… a SEARS! Still in business.

Anyone who knows me, or has been reading this blog for a long time will know that I use to work for Sears (phone support, not in-store) but the downfall of Sears is one that hurts my heart – mainly because they were gutted by their own CEO. It didn’t have to be that way. Anyway- that’s another rant for another time. We stopped inside and ended up getting some items as nearly everything was on sale.

Later on that night we headed back to the hotel, had the evening reception that the hotel hosted, and made our way to our rooms. The next day is the 31st. The last day of the year.

What should we do? We took a poll and everyone wanted to stay another night. We checked out of one hotel and used some more points on another Hilton (the Garden Inn). We were staying in Mukilteo and so I looked for things to do. There was a cute lighthouse nearby (we visited during the day and then again at night) and a free Christmas light display at the Evergreen Arboretum & Gardens that we went to see. It was really fun.

Then we made our way towards downtown Seattle. It is hard in the PNW to find events that celebrate… anything. Seattle does fireworks and more and its a free show. We figured that we were already in the area, so why not do it!?

We parked downtown and then took the monorail to the Space Needle area. While we were finding our way we came across a concert that was taking place (see below). Yeah, there were a few people to navigate, but overall it was a fun event. We made our way outside and over to the fountain (the best viewing angle for the show).

As much fun as it was, I’m not so sure I could do NYC and camp out for a spot. As it was we arrived at close to 10:30 and after walking around, taking the monorail and whatnot we got to the view of the Space Needle (above) with about 25 minutes left to spare.

If ever in the northwest, I would say to check this event out. If in California? Try the Rose Bowl. If looking for free you will be a little more hard-pressed. Emily went to Vegas and that looked pretty fun as well.

Anyway, what a year! It is over! Goodnight! See you next year in 2023.

just Pray

Hey

The next morning we drove back to Leavenworth. Why? Only a few shops were open when we arrived and we wanted to make sure we visited all of them. We came all this way, why leave now?! It was pretty. Here are a few more photos.

The kids seemed to like it enough to ask if we were at an amusement park. The night prior we let them slide down some hills and they were laughing and really having a blast.

The time had come to go. We chained up (which took a couple of hours to mess with and figured out) but once we got going all was fine. It said chains were required but I have to tell you – the night prior was FAR FAR worse conditions than what we drove on the day after. We made our way down via Yakima. Before we arrived in Yakima we registered a chilly -12 below. Brrrr!

We grabbed a bite to eat at Miner’s burger (one of the best places to visit) and for once in my kid’s life, they didn’t want to eat outside (and yes, of course, I offered – what kind of monster do you think I am?!)

After we got done eating, we all decided to stay a night in town and make the final trip home the next day.

The next morning we got up and came back. It is amazing how temps in the 30s feel warm when you have been exposed to sub-zero temps. We wanted to get back because the kids had an event at church during the Christmas eve service. When we got back there were talks of Portland getting an ice storm. It didn’t disappoint with that.

The photo above was taken on Christmas eve. We were all held up in the house. We got an email from the church saying that they were canceling all of the Christmas events due to the ice storm. Not super fun. It was a “white” Christmas for us in the sense that the ground was white with ice on Christmas day.

Christmas came and went without much fanfare. We didn’t do much and the kids were not in the best of moods this year so that made things extra fun. We all kept thinking about how we should have just stayed in Leavenworth for a few more nights. Ah well, maybe next time.

The day after Christmas it warmed up and melted away, then and we got notifications of a wind storm. If you saw the photo above you know that we felt it. At night we heard a loud bang. The next day we went out and saw the fence was down the whole way. Ugh. Annoying. Our power was also out for a good 12 hours during the event. It made everyone a little stir-crazy.

Maybe we should go somewhere? Maybe. We will see.

just Pray

hey!

Remember how I said we wanted it to feel a little more like Christmas? Well, we did a thing.

We were all sitting around talking about how we wanted to be more active since it is a little boring when you sit around and don’t do anything. Anyway, we decided to give Leavenworth another shot. Last time we visited they hardly had any snow.

I checked the forecast and it was pretty good. Rain was all in Seattle and flurries/light snow was expected the next day. Not bad. We booked the room for a night in Wenatchee (fairly close to Leavenworth and a fraction of the cost).

The morning that we went to leave, the news report was updated. Ice in the Gorge (near where we live) and so 84 was closed going east (that would have been the route we took) to get there the quickest. Okay, no biggie. Weather reports said the cold Arctic air was pushing in quicker than was forecast. I checked the weather reports going north. So far so good, as long as we miss Seattle by 1 because now they are expecting snow too.

We started up on 5 and it was pouring rain. I would say that probably most of the way I was going between 40 and 50 on a 65 MPH road. We had good solid heavy rain for the majority of the way up. We stopped in the Tacoma area and filled up – I noticed that the temperature was dropping ever so slightly every few miles. It was 40, 39, 38, 37.

Let’s get going! We went a few miles further toward Seattle and saw 36, 35, 34, 33. Seattle snow driving wouldn’t be on my list of things to do. I’ve seen the videos, they react like Portlanders (and go crazy).

By the time we were entering the city limits of Seattle, we were in a snowstorm. The snow continued. After a quick route check, I noticed that i-90 was closed due to snow. The only way over to Leavenworth was on route 2. A bit further north but didn’t seem to delay our time.

This was the event (click to read).

That was a fun time. The road ended up getting closed due to blizzard conditions and an avalanche. We sat on the road. In the photos above you can see it is daylight. After waiting some 4 hours it was dark. We didn’t have any option but to wait as our room was non-refundable (not that we would have turned around anyway). We eventually got word that they were almost done clearing all of the snow off the road.

When we started up and moving again we drove in some pretty crazy conditions. They happened to open the road up again only to have it start snowing pretty heavily once more. It was so snowy I could hardly see the road – if I was on it, and if there was anyone in front of me. Winter driving like I haven’t done before. I tried to keep up with the person in front of me so that I knew that I was on the road. Occasionally would see that they were a LOT closer than the snow made it seem.

But after all of that? We made it!

Leavenworth. We arrived on a night when fewer people than normal were in town (probably because nobody could get to the place). Look at the photo of the back of my car below. You can’t see a license plate, hardly that I have a car.

Was it worth it?

Entirely.

The photos don’t do justice. It was a cold -2 outside (Arctic air) but with the snow falling and the city lit up it made it magical. It is probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to stepping inside one of those snow globes.

It was amazing. I didn’t want the night to end.

We eventually got done and made our way to the hotel, grabbed some food, and went to bed.

just Pray

Hey,

Tmobile has been a pain to us. Let me tell you what happened. We signed up for the iPhone 14 Pro Max deal they had. You sign up and they give you $1000 for your iPhone 12 Pro Max (something like 400 for the phone and 600 because they are nice) or something like that. Anyway, we signed up and got our phones and they said yeah everything is fine. Hmm… now wait – just a second. Maybe it isn’t. Nope, you didn’t sign up under that promo.
Wait, what?

So when we signed up we expressly confirmed with them that the promotion was still valid and that we would get the offer. We were confirmed multiple times by multiple reps and managers. Why would we check? Well, in years past we have had issues with them doing and giving what they said they would. This time we covered our bases a little more. Or at least we thought so.

They returned to us saying yeah sorry we have no record of anyone ever saying that. You were confused. You didn’t sign up under the offer. You signed up under an offer to trade in your phones for $100. So you are out the $900. If you’d like we can meet you halfway and give you $500 per device.

What? Bait and switch. Misleading, deceptive, and fraudulent. We fought as much as we could. At the end of it all we asked for our old phones back, but they said “Nope, once you give your phones we have no way to give them to you, also since they were iPhone 12s we don’t have that model anymore. We could have sold our phones outright for maybe $700 or so but T-Mobile was happy to keep the phones and give us $100. We returned our iPhone 14s and then proceeded to buy (outright) an iPhone 13. We couldn’t swing the amount for a 14 so this would have to do. Talk about getting taken through the wringer and spit out. Of any other frustration we have ever had with the company, this tops them all. We would have canceled all of our lines and gone with another carrier but we get a discount through work that makes the price less than the other companies. We are still (laughable I know) better off having bought the iPhones outright versus taking the “generous offer” that Tmobile gave us.

What a joke.

They also don’t have any corporate office where you can talk to anyone. It is super frustrating to have issues like this and not be able to talk to anyone who cares or who can do anything about it. You know, having previously worked in a call center, they would have the calls recorded. We asked to have the calls pulled, but mysteriously every single call that we were told it was a valid offer was “missing or not available”

Above is a photo of our new phone. Adopt-a-phone!

We had to try to make the times just a little happier. We went to Gresham station and saw some reindeer. The kids enjoyed it and the adults tried to rid themselves as much as they could of memories of this ordeal we have been dealing with since September.

just Pray

hey there,

In the first part of this month, Grams was still visiting. This whole event unraveled a lot differently than I thought it would. For better or for worse, it took place. I believe in some ways we (the wife and I) realized that this relationship that we have with Grams will not reach the levels or closeness that we have with other parts of the family. It is a bittersweet realization. I am glad that the kids were able to have some time to spend with her. The whole trip was pretty altered by the fact that she couldn’t walk much and limited us to mainly staying at home for much of her stay.

Above you see a night when the kids were watching Stranger Things with her. The next photo is of Grams and the kids doing a Christmas fair at a local church we have been going to (Rise). We wouldn’t normally of had her go, but this was the last day that she was with us. In fact- after this event, we stopped at home only to get her things and she was whisked off to the airport.

We got out of the car at the airport (as much as we could due to not being allowed to stop in the drop-off zones for a very long). I got her things out of the car and had the kids get out to say their goodbyes. I’m assuming she was feeling flustered, she said a quick goodbye to Arabella and started walking away before saying goodbye to Elijah. The wife tracked her down with Elijah, he got to say a quick goodbye. Seeing that she was overwhelmed, Maryia took her inside the airport and had someone help her get to her terminal.

A few days before she left, it was super cold outside (temps in the 20s) and it started to flurry outside. I was up putting the Christmas lights on the house and noticed that they had the typical form that you see on drawings. Okay, so I hadn’t ever seen with my own eyes a snowflake so perfectly formed. They fell on the roof and didn’t melt (since it was so chilly outside). It allowed me to grab a photo. Pretty cool.

The day after her flight took off, we got a dusting of snow too. Good thing her flight was when it was, generally mention snow and things start to shut down in this city. The snow lasted for a couple of days. It allowed us to get some photos while the white stuff was on the ground (see below).

It was at this same time that we gave Einstein away to the wife’s Aunt. The photo below is when we dropped him off. Overall, the dog will have a better life with someone who can spend more time with him and give the attention needed to a puppy. Our kiddos were not up for the task, and adding a puppy to the kids made things a little crazier and took away our ability to travel. Add also the complaints from the neighbors and our HOA starting to ask questions.. it seemed to be the best outcome.

We have had a lot of changes during this time. People visiting, people leaving, dogs leaving. Time to return to church as a compass to point north. Rise? Yeah. Not so sure about this place. We have started to think that maybe we will go to multiple churches until we feel sure about where we should be.

After Church, we returned home and prepared the home for my parents to come live with us for a little. They have sold their house in Southern California and are moving to Sacramento to be about 7 or 8 hours closer to the kids and us. They weren’t able to get a place (because the place fell through) so they would stay with us until the first of the year. At which point they should have a place lined up.

Lots of changes!

just Pray