An Adventurous Saturday

 Today dawned bright and beautiful.  We knew that we wanted to get out and move around, and let Emma play.  The only problem was what to do.

So this week's Thursday Thrill is up to me.  We are suppose to go to the Washington Park Rose Garden, then walk over to the Elephant House for lunch and play on the Playground.  The only problem was that a friend had done that same thing the day I sent the e-mail, and she noticed signs at the park stating it was closed for maintenance.  However, it was open and in use when she was there.

With this knowledge, we decided we had better check out the park to see what was going on.  So this was our first stop of the day.  We found that the playground was indeed open and in use, but there were signs posted that it was closed? Since we were there, we took a good tour of the huge playground, and Emma had a ball.  She was very proud of her ability to hang from the rings.  we did have issues with her being willing to climb the structure.

Now this playground includes a huge deck that has slides and other interesting things to do.  Emma is terrified of it.  She would not walk up there, and refused to do anything that was not on the ground.  It is a very stable deck, so not sure why she is so scared.  This seems to be a trend this spring, and I hope we can work through it.

So after playing on the playground for about an hour, we walked on over to the Elephant House.  The Elephant House is all that remains of the original Washington Park Zoo.  They used the actual Elephant House and re-designed it into a covered picnic spot.  There are mosaic animals on the outside, and a stone carved Elephant inside. Really a special part of Portland's history.

So where to next?  As Glenn and I discussed it, we found that we need to talk about things away from Emma.  She heard the words Children's Museum, and that is all she wanted to do.  So, we decided we would try, but not guarantee.  You see, the Children's Museum shares a parking lot with both the Zoo and the Forestry Center.  As we drove through the parking lot, it was filled to capacity, with several cars circling to find a spot.  Now there is another lot that you can shuttle in from, but Glenn didn't want to use it.

So we did try one last option for going to Emma's first choice.  We drove down to the Sunset Park and Ride to catch the Max.  This seemed like a great option, however their parking lot was full as well.  We drove the whole thing, and didn't even see people walking to their cars, let alone an empty spot.  And there were still tons of cars there looking for a spot.  With this mess, we decided that the Children's Museum was out.

So as we drove around, knowing that we were going to do something else, we finally decided that OMSI was the best alternative to the Children's Museum.  And even better, we already have a family pass, so it was free!

 Emma and I visit OMSI fairly often (thus the family pass) but we rarely get to share it with Glenn.  It was fun to have Daddy there to play in the Discovery Lab's with Emma.  She showed him her favorite things, and they played together in the water area.  After over an hour, we decided to head down to Turbine Hall so that Glenn could see how it had changed.  The first thing we saw as we entered was my cousin Bethany, her boys, her brother Jake and my Uncle Norm.  It was too funny that we would run into them.  We visited a bit as the kids played, but the demands of kids took us apart from one another.  We knew that we would be getting together on Monday, so no problem.

After such a busy day, Emma was pretty tired.  We headed home, and had a nice quite evening.  We always love Saturday's when we can just have a good adventure!