~Lifestyle Update: Back From Portland! (Long Picture Heavy Post)~

Hello everyone!! I know I'm quite a few days late on this post but I've been busy these past couple of days and couldn't upload all of my photos hahaha~ Anyways, here's a recap on our BIG FAMILY FUN VACATION to Portland, OR ^.^ I emphasized all those words because we were actually quite a big group this time, twelve of us! Usually it's my family (4) and aunt and uncle for a total of 6 (oooo I can do maths, spooky). But this time we took my other uncles and aunts along with two of our cousins and it was a blast!! It was so much of a blast that I neglected to take pictures most of the time! (Excuses excuses lol).

Originally it was just going to be the four of us so I had an itinerary that had places where my sister and I wanted to go. After finding out more people were going we had to smush all the stuff we wanted to do in one day and be flexible about the schedule so we could visit places everyone wanted to go to as well! Here is the map of my first itinerary for reference:

Some of the places we wanted to hit up were:
Fubonn Market & Pretty and Cute (1)
Purringtons Cat Lounge (2)
Mt. Tabor (7)
Slappy Cakes (14)
Hawthorne Street (bottom orange cluster)
Powells City of Books & Portland Saturday Market (upper orange cluster)


***Sidenote: It's SOOOO refreshing outside today!!! (WA) It's been super hot and stuffy and today is cool and breezy and thunder-y and I love it *_____* <3 *****

Our first stop on the road trip was...the bathroom/rest stop LOL. You guys don't understand how many stops we had in the beginning hahaha~ We stopped by Starbucks for the drivers (and hot cocoa for the kids *cough me* ;-D) then to Seafood City for some snacks?! MORE?! We already had four bags of chips, grapes, and carrots in the car AND fried chicken AND siao pao (steamed buns) :O But of course we needed some tocino and rice and some Jollibee burgers @___@ We were not about to starve on this trip, lemme tell ya. We picnic-ed at a reststop (the third I think?) and I took some pictures of this cute blue bird that kept hopping over and eating some snacks we kept dropping hahaha!

OH HEY. Remember that tiny camera I wanted to use a bunch on the trip so I could show you guys the quality? IT DIED. Right after I took ONE picture of the bird it went kaput! It was warning me it had a low battery but I didn't listen because it was a BRAND NEW BATTERY. Meh. I wonder if I did something to it that made the battery connection weak? I'll try to figure it out soonish T__T ALSO guess which other camera decided to die before I took any cool pictures? That's right, I forgot to change the batteries on my Instax as well *___* And to add onto my stupid I didn't bring my phone charger and that was basically my only source of picture taking, hence the great lack of photos :D

The actual first stop was Hawthorne because some of the stores closed a little early and I just wanted to get that shopping over with because I knew most of the adults wouldn't enjoy thrifting. So I gave them the directions to House of Vintage on Hawthorne because I knew there was a Red Light, Buffalo Exchange, and Crossroads Trading here in WA and we could skip those. The lighting in there wasn't so great and I mostly took pictures of knick knacks rather than clothes which is sad because now that I think about it I should've taken clothing inspo pics even though I wasn't gonna buy them (too $$$!). Other than it being huge in there and the people being nice, I wasn't sprung on H.O.V. because everything I wanted was kinda pricey and not in the best conditions. Still there was a LOT of stuff there so I definitely recommend checking it out if you're in the area and are into thrifting and vintage-y clothing! :3

For some reason the only shots of clothes I got were outside, probably because the lighting was so dim in parts of the store >.<

I really wanted to look through this jar of buttons~

I don't know why this little chicken was so funny to me hahaha

Hello Kitty of course! <3

So many collectors glasses!

An old rotary phone that looked super cute~

Was also very tempted to buy one of these mugs (either this one or the mushroom one above) but I was afraid they might break under all the luggage T__T

Cute!

They had a lot of soda related things around the store hahaha ^__^ I liked the cracker tin though~

I kinda wanted to get this even though it probably doesn't even work and I would have to get special film for it 3:

As you can see I was very fond of all the little knick knacks all over the shop!

Garfield is such a cutie

I really wanted this bag as a lunch bag but it was $20!!! Nevermind haha

I wanted to look for my name but I thought I saw a spider so I changed my mind lol

Fancy dolls

Cat pillow <3__<3

Next I said we should go to Fubonn because it was the furthest destination according to the map (that I planned anyways) and it had air con and probably some snacks (yes people were hungry despite all the snacks we had). My uncle also said that was a good idea because it was a vietnamese (mainly) food store apparently and had a lot of things my relatives would enjoy. So as they explored the market my cousin, sister, and I went into Pretty and Cute! We went there last year and its soooo amazing! They also have an online store where you can buy all the adorable Korean/Japanese/Taiwanese etc. cosmetics and beauty supplies! <3 They give you lots of free samples and things as well which is cool!

My sister going inside haha she couldn't wait.

Such cute hand creams! 

Look at all the masks!! *___*

Everything is very nicely organized and neat. The whole store looks so bright and clean too!

Powders and face things~

Pretty falsies C;

Is that Wonder Pore I see? :3 OH WAIT I don't think I did a review on my WP kit from Pretty and Cute yet, huh? :O

The face washes also looked tempting...

The packaging in Asia is so on point *___*

I got a lip tint from here and I might just do a review on it!

I wanted the pink mascara but chickened out ahahha~

I have enough skin care stuff for now :3

I asked my sis to get some candid shots too haha~

Cousin and my mom!!

Check in time at the hotel was about 3:00 so we went there and dropped off our luggage and things. For some reason we spent like three hours at the hotel?! Now that I think about it we used up so much valuable time that we could have used for browsing but I guess people wanted to relax a little bit 3: Oh well~

Then we decided to go to a buffet because it was also my aunts birthday and we wanted to celebrate! I was too busy eating to take pictures but it was called Super King Buffet and is pretty good if you're used to/enjoy low key Chinese buffets.

Our last destination was Powells City of Books!!! I was SUPER DUPER excited to revisit this place because when we went last year we only spent about an hour in this ginormous book store and that isn't nearly enough time. You need at least half a day to browse through all the wonderful color coded rooms of books and things. Aaaaand I'm just realizing now that I didn't take any pictures of the actual books lol T___T oops

I wanted this mug the most!!!

SOOO SPARKLY ***

Do we have cute things like this in WA?!

It looks like I only managed to get pictures of all the cool knick knacks again lol I'm such a tourist.

Kinda wanted to get one of these too~ I bet they'll make some for WA too lol

I FINALLY found a journal that I liked after months of searching for a nice one at Uwaji and various bookstores, craft stores, and stationary stores. Even though we spent two hours there this time I still wanted to go back and buy more things :'-D But I was hot and dehydrated and everyone was tired so we went back to the hotel.

It's perfect! Black, hardcover, spiral, good size, thick enough paper for markers (but not Blicks 3:)

Preview of a page inside :D

And what do you think we did next? Shower? Sleep? The very first thing we did when we got back to the hotel was eat pancakes!!! LOL I know I know, we just went to  a buffet and then we went and ate pancakes?! YEP! Unlimited midnight pancakes with the pancake machine in the hotel dining room :D It's like a 3d printer for pancakes >___< hahaha:

If you can hear the sounds in the video please ignore my annoying voice lol. I know the sign says don't touch and I kept touching it but I thought the pancake machine was getting jammed and I didn't want to get in trouble for accidentally breaking it by making too many pancakes LOL.

The double pancake that came out reminded me of a peanut lol >.<

Day 2 of our Portland trip was basically shopping day, because ya know no tax and stuff :3. So we went to Woodburn Outlet, a super huge outlet South of Portland I believe? I picked up some sweet new kicks at the adidas store. We bought three things and with a 15% off coupon our total was about $60! Oh how I love outlets :'D

Sorry about the bad lighting in my room hahaha >___<

Love the color scheme of these trainers: mint, cream, and beige.

Then it was time for lunch and then home because one of my aunts still had to drive back to Canada~ By the time everyone was checked out of the hotel it was maybe 1:30 and we spent awhile in traffic before we got to Woodburn which ate up a lot of time as well >.< We ate lunch at a cool diner style burger place called Fuddruckers. It's very easy to accidentally switch the R and F in that name by the way lolol. It was basically a DIY burger place because you could customize your burger with the type of meat, how well you wanted to to be (I like mine medium-medium well) and then add your own toppings at the bar.

We got home at about 11:00 and everyone was super tired TT___TT But all-in-all it was a super duper fun family trip! We do this once every summer and I can't wait to find out what the trip will be next year :D

Thanks so much for catching up with me all you lovelies!! <3 It's raining so hard here right now! I'd better publish this before the lights go out!! AHHH!! So sorry for any mistakes or typos, I'll fix them when I can :3

xoxo Abby