Yay Friday

Yay, it's Friday! Even though I don't go out to an office all week, it's still nice to know it's Friday.

And I have some excitement to share.

In a few weeks, we are going on a trip to an area we've never been to before. The West coast!!

Here's how it came about...

Because of our trips to visit my husband's family in India the past three years, with the same airline, we accumulated "onepass miles", better known as frequent flyer miles. We realized some time in the past what the reward travels options were. So in the past couple months after our trip to India, we started looking into it more.

Me and my husband had enough miles to get a round trip ticket to anywhere in the (48 continuous) US! Kavi didn't quite have enough, because the first year we all went to India together he sat on our laps, which was very cheap, so he didn't get to count those miles towards the reward program. My husband had extra miles from going alone in the past. So we transferred the needed miles to my son's account, and the cost of that was $225, much cheaper than the airline tickets I was seeing for sale.

So with a $10 fee each person + the miles transfer, we spent $255 for all three of us to fly to...
Portland, Oregon!!

Now, people are already asking, "oh wow, what's in Portland?" or "do you have family there?"
No family there. But why did we choose Portland?

Several reasons:

It's almost the most far away we can get from Florida, with it still being in the 48 states. Seattle was another option but we chose to fly to Portland.
I have heard it's a pretty cool city. Lots of artsy stuff.
Not far to the east of Portland is Mt. Hood, a snow capped mountain! I have not been right by a snow capped mountain before. I have only flown over them en route to India.
Not far to the west is the Pacific coastline, and cool looking beaches like Cannon Beach!
The weather there will be much more pleasant than Florida summer, even if it's rainy.
It's only 2.5-3 hours from Seattle-day trip!

So we booked our tickets two weeks ago, also found a VERY affordable motel with good customer reviews across the WA state line near Portland(in Vancouver, Wa). And we will be there six nights/five full days. After the long plane rides to India, traveling 8-9 hours to get to the west coast will feel short. We will be there the beginning of July. :D

I made a pin board inspired by the trip planning on pinterest.

You can see the whole board here.

Source: andersondesigngroupstore.com via Christina on Pinterest