adventures in life

Beaverton

By loraraeccoon / June 26, 2019 / family, getaways, outings / Leave a comment

Beaverton. Not exactly a place that comes to mind for a getaway. But that’s where we went in March. Olivia had a dive meet at the Tualatin Hills Aquatic Center in Beaverton, Oregon. My sister and her family came up from California and we drove down to meet them and cheer on Olivia.

We arrived on a Thursday afternoon, around 5pm. My sister and her family arrived not long after. We all checked into the hotel, and scored rooms right next to each other. Saige! Being a larger family, hotels usually have a five person max per room rule. And while I’m usually a hardcore, strict rule follower, this is one rule I tend to break. It’s not like we’re six adults in a room… kids are small and we can all sleep just fine with two beds. I try to get hotel rooms with kiddo suites, which we find fairly often but not always. But Saige. We went ahead and asked for a hideaway bed since Laine wanted to sleep alone. The hotel guy brought one to our room and as he was leaving, Saige followed him out in the hall saying, “We have four kids! That’s one more than allowed!” Luckily the guy couldn’t have cared less. With my sister next door and only having four in her room, we figured we could toss a kiddo in there if the hotel said anything.

After settling into our rooms, we left for dinner. My sister suggested Black Bear Diner. We had never been so we were game. It’s a standard diner, probably one I would imagine more in rural areas. It worked just fine. They had seating readily available for 10 and the food was surprisingly cheap. After everyone was fed, back to the hotel we went for the cousins to get their swim on. I stayed back in the room with Saige and Baby; it was past their bedtime.

Friday we started the day with a late breakfast at a restaurant near the hotel. Olivia had to be at the aquatic center by 4pm so we had about five hours to find something to do. The Oregon Zoo in Portland was fairly close but we ruled that out since we were on a time schedule. There weren’t any bouncy houses that had open jump time for big kiddos, only toddler times since it was a weekday. We ended up finding a bowling alley and arcade nearby. The kiddos had a blast! And bonus, next door was a nail salon. My sister, Olivia, Laine, and Saige all had their nails done. I had just been the weekend before so I was all set. Saige was super excited; this was her first time going.

It was time to get Olivia to practice. We all left and went to the aquatic center to cheer Olivia on while she practiced. I don’t remember what we did for dinner but I’m sure we went somewhere. Oh, I remember. Olivia’s dive team had a banquet dinner at a local restaurant. It was crazy. I think there were about 40 people crammed into a back room at the restaurant. They offered a limited menu, which wasn’t ideal for my vegetarian self. But the kiddos had a great time and managed to eat enough. It was a long dinner, close to three hours. The poor waitresses were either new or confused handling multiple tickets when it came to pay. I felt for them. We finally made it back to the hotel in time for bed, about 10:30pm. Brian had stayed behind with Saige and Baby, who were already asleep when we walked in.

Saturday was the dive meet. Lucky for Olivia, all of her dives were set for Saturday. Some divers had dives Saturday and Sunday. And even luckier, her two dives were back-to-back Saturday afternoon. We all went to brunch around 11am before separating with my sister taking her kiddos and Blaise and Laine to the aquatic center, and Brian and I taking Saige and Baby back to the hotel for some downtime before the meet.

We were all together at the aquatic center to watch Olivia dive. She did great! She had a few different dives at different heights. We cheered her on and waited for the award ceremony before calling it a day at the aquatic center. We grabbed Costco pizza on the way back to the hotel and had dinner in before the kiddos all went swimming in the hotel pool. It was a lazy Saturday evening before we called it a night.

Originally we were going to leave Sunday afternoon but Laine had a gymnastics meet Sunday to make up for the February one that was cancelled due to snow. Our family left at 6am so we could be home to get Laine ready for her meet and up in Edmonds by 2pm. We didn’t get to see cousins before we left but we had said our goodbyes Saturday night. It was great to see them and have the opportunity to watch Olivia. They left later Sunday and made their way back to California.