Coming Home

I'm finally getting around to posting the end of our Portland trip...

The last day of our Portland trip was Friday. Rather than hitting another stop in Portland before leaving, we headed for home right after breakfast. Of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for one more field trip (making it 6 places in just 4 days) so I stopped at the St. Helen's Visitor Center to stretch our legs. There are three visitor's centers and while I really want to take my kids up to the ridge, it just wasn't going to happen this time. It was cloudy and raining which meant we wouldn't see the mountain well, if at all, anyway. So, we just stopped by the center that is just 5 miles off the freeway by Spirit Lake. It seemed like a great idea to me since we did learn a little bit about volcanoes earlier in the year.



First, we watched a 13 minute movie about the 1980 eruption. It was a full house with a visiting private school on a year-end field trip. Afterwards, we explored the exhibits available. One showed where they believe the continents used to be before they moved to their current locations. Another showed the "Ring of Fire". There were a couple of cool statues and other exhibits pertaining to volcanoes and climbing. There was this neat one in the photo. You can go down into a volcano model to see the rock layers and molton core. The kids thought it was cool.

I enjoyed this display showing St. Helens before and after the eruption side by side.

Outside we found some trails and a boardwalk through the wetlands. It was green and beautiful. However, due to the cold, rainy weather we didn't go far.
Before hitting the freeway again, we stopped at Burger King for some lunch. Josh loved being crowned king. Can't you tell?
Not too far down the freeway, I captured this photo. Josh was so tired, he passed out with his water bottle still in his lap. Meanwhile, Mika is struggling to open up a pudding container.

Sammy wasn't tired. No, not at all. Mika is still struggling with that pudding.

By the way, this is a common site of my 6 year old in the car. Does anyone else have a 6 year old that still passes out in the car like this? It needn't be a long trip, either.

Well, that was our Portland trip, beginning to end. We had a long, tiring, but fun week. By the end of it, Mika missed home and wanted to get back. Sammy, on the other hand, loved it so much he didn't want to come home.

I hope you enjoyed tagging along with us via the blog.

The Hotel

Staying at a hotel was a novelty for the kids. They've only been in a hotel once before and they were excited about it, especially when they learned that our hotel fed you breakfast, provided free cable and Internet access, and had a pool and hot tub. It was going to be fun! And, in many ways, it was.


Each evening we were there, we headed down to the pool to swim/play. The kids loved it! They went back and forth between the pool and the hot tub. Some of the parents in our group took advantage of the pool and hot tub as well. I took the chance to take Josh into the pool for the first time. He loved the pool and hot tub and pointed me back and forth to both of them. By the end of the week, he was happily walking off the edge of the pool (he doesn't know how to jump yet) and "swimming" to me from the steps.

One evening we couldn't swim as the pool was closed for the night due to an unfortunate potty accident. Oh, no! What are we going to do all night? Have a movie night party in our room, of course! We had three families in my room to watch Stewart Little 2. During commercials, they wrestled and played and threw popcorn all over the carpet. (The two children don't have faces because I didn't get a chance to get permission to post their photo.)

Thursday night, Josh was exhausted and passed out early. I don't know why; we only woke up at 7am, ate breakfast, went to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, visited the World Forestry Discovery Center, went to dinner at a restaurant, and swam for an hour and a half...all after spending the prior two and a half days doing other all day outings. Why would he be tired?

Mika wasn't tired either. Really, she wasn't. Not one bit.

So, about the hotel itself...

We stayed at the Comfort Inn & Suites near the Portland Airport. The group we went with (CVA) booked the hotel based on rate, breakfast service, and having a pool. It was an okay hotel. It was a smaller hotel and not quite as nice looking as the photos on their website. It looks older than the main building photo and is located in a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood close to two freeways. My room didn't come with that nice floral display on the coffee table shown in the photo but it was fairly nice and clean. The maid service cleaned every day, leaving fresh linens and towels as needed (unless you indicated otherwise). I had to call the front desk twice for a plugged toilet and another time for toilet paper. The day we left there were problems with the sound on our TV.


There were issues over the phone service because they block it when a group reserves the rooms. I had a hard time getting my phone service turned back on. The first day, the front desk employee basically shrugged her shoulders and told me she didn't know why it didn't work or how to turn it back on. I wanted to let my dad (whom we visited prior to joining the group) know we made it without getting lost. I also wanted to let my kids talk with daddy but they couldn't. The second day I was able to get them to allow me to make local calls. The third day, the phone was blocked again and I had to call down to the front desk to get it turned back on again. While I understood the reasoning behind blocking the phones, I think they should have allowed them to be turned on when requested. All that would have been required was a personal credit card on file so the call charges could be billed to the family instead of the group. It was a hassle that I didn't enjoy.


Breakfast service was ok. There were waffles you make yourself, four cereals, mini muffins, dry donuts, bagels and a variety of toast, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, and biscuits and gravy. Drinks included coffee, tea, hot chocolate, milk and juice. While protein was lacking, there were a reasonable amount of choices that would be enough for most people. I recommend staying away from the biscuits and gravy as I've never tasted worse gravy.


Overall, the hotel was ok. It was more pleasant than negative. I can't really compare it because I don't know the amenities and prices of other hotels in the area. I'd probably do some shopping around if I were to stay in a Portland hotel again.


Ok, truth be told, if I had the money I'd stay in the Residence Inn by Mariott -- Downtown/Lloyd Center in a 2 bedroom loft, penthouse suite. I stayed there once with some friends and it was awesome. Of course it is also 2 1/2 times the cost.

World Forestry Discovery Center

The World Forestry Discover Center is another Portland location that we visited while we were there last week. It is located across the parking lot from the zoo and is an attraction on the Portland Attractions Pass, so we went.

The entire two floor museum is dedicated to learning about forests and all that pertains to forests throughout the world. It covered everything from the animals that make forests their home to recreational pursuits to logging. Most of the museum was hands on activities, making it interesting to children.

This photo shows the kids piled into a safari jeep which was a creative seating arrangement for a video safari through the South African forests. A boat takes you on a video ride on the Songhua Lake in China. A train has TVs telling you about the Trans Siberian Railway. And a canopy crane takes you to the top of the Brazilian forests. These creative seatings were fun for the kids.

My kids loved this virtual whitewater rafting trip. My toddler loved bouncing in the raft while my daughter enjoyed to opportunity to be dramatic. You can actually see yourself on the screen in the raft going down the river with other boats. The camera takes your photo, which you can later purchase.
Kids can also climb up some steps and sit in the cab of this logging tractor. It's great for make-believe. Back on the floor, you can operate the machine virtually. Another virtual exhibit nearby allowed you to sit in a sling and pretend to be a smoke jumper.

Upstairs was this wood of the world exhibit showing how wood was used by various countries throughout the wood. All of it was hands on and the kids went from station to station looking and trying things out.

This museum was interesting but my tired kids were ready to go after about two hours. It makes a great field trip to anyone studying plants, forests, the timber industry, or the Pacific Northwest. While I wouldn't drive down to Portland just for this (I would drive just for OMSI, though), it can be an interesting stop if you have the time.

End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

I'm finally getting back to finishing up my Portland posts. On Thursday, we headed over to the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. The center consists of two parts; a typical museum where you look at and read about the exhibits and a presentation.

In the exhibit building there were some things to look at but not touch. There were actual pioneer dresses, a wagon (you can see part of it in the background), and other small artifacts. There were only a few hands on exhibits such as this cardboard quilting activity Sammy is working on. There were two scavenger hunt sheets; a drawing-based one and a written one. There were maps that you can put a post-it note on with your family name to show where your family is from and a basic family tree worksheet. A couple of bonnets are available for your daughters to try on. But that was about it in the main rooms.

In a back room were some interesting activities. One of them was this "wagon" that you could pack with the items you need to take with you on the Oregon Trail. There were pans, buckets, bags of food staples, canned goods, and other items that the pioneers would have needed for the trip. It is the kids' job to attempt to pack all of these things in the wagon. When they are done, they must put it all back for the next visitors. In this room, there was also a wheat grinder, a photo board (you know those things boards with drawings on them that you put your faces in the holes?), some pioneer readers, and some pioneer toys to play with.

The most interesting part of the center was the presentation. A pioneer-garbed woman talks about the traveler's experience from purchasing items, to difficult decisions on what to bring, to things that might happen on the trail. In the process, she uses the props you see all around her in this photo and some audio files. We learned about how much items cost. She talked about how some people had a hard time parting with special family heirlooms and often made poor decisions to bring heavy, large items that later might be abandoned along the trail. She told us tales about the men learning to drive the oxen pulling the carts, shooting themselves accidentally in their excitement in shooting a buffalo, and about a baby that was bounced out of a wagon unnoticed until several miles later (he was found safe and unharmed later). Some of these stories really brought the experience to life. This presentation was geared towards upper elementary age students as far as content and holding a kids' interest. For mom, it was interesting.

After that presentation, we were ushered into another room for a multimedia presentation told from the perspective of four actual pioneers: two men, a woman/wife/mother, and a young girl. The stories told came from their actual diary entries, using their own words. It, too, was interesting. Between the two presentations, it was a bit much for younger children, though.

While I found the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center interesting, my kids had a different experience. The museum portion was uninteresting to them but the presentations were better. My 6 year old did fine with it but he's used to and good at sitting through things he doesn't enjoy. More active children who have a hard time sitting still or young children might have a hard time with it. Altogether, you'll only spend about 2 hours there, not counting lunch if you choose to picnic there.

Portland Children's Museum

We skipped part of the Oregon Zoo so we would have time to hit the Portland Children's Museum located across the parking lot from the zoo. Besides the kids were getting tired of walking.

Just inside the door of the children's museum is their water works exhibit. This area has several water play tables with a variety of ways play with the water. There is a major flaw in the design of this area: most of it is out of reach of children under about three or four years old. Josh could just barely reach this one water table which happened to have a step on one side. He loves playing in water and it was a shame he couldn't reach most of it. Sammy, on the other hand, could reach it all and enjoyed doing such things as turning a crank that rotated a water wheel that had a variety of strange objects to scoop the water with...like a baby's shoe and a rubber fish.

This area of the children's museum was a hit with the younger crowd. It was a large area filled with cleaned rubber pieces that we parents guessed was chunks of tires and running track. They had a variety of scoops, buckets, and dump trucks available. Josh liked this area a lot. While I was watching Josh, the older kids were busy in the store set up nearby. Their favorite part of the store was the miniture grocery carts (that some stores have for the kids) and the cash registers that beep as if it is scanning the products. The Hands on Children's Museum in Olympia has a similar store area but it is smaller and doesn't have carts (only baskets) or beeping cash machines. For this reason alone, I think, Sammy likes Portland better.

There was also a neat stage there. It comes complete with a curtain you can open and close, stage makeup (face paint) you can apply yourself, costumes, and working lighting. After watching Josh dig for what felt like forever, I left him under the supervision of a friend to check on the older kids. I found Sammy entertaining a handful of parents with chicken jokes.

Later, Josh and I joined the older kids at the stage. He wanted these shoes put on him.

Meanwhile, Mika went back and forth between working the lights and being on stage.

While there were other parts of the museum, they were small areas that didn't interest the kids. We spent more than an hour at the stage while various kids entertained us with their on-stage antics.

Oregon Zoo

The Oregon Zoo is a really nice zoo. It's certainly rivals the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. One of the really nice things about this zoo is the fact that it is very wooded. It's beautiful just to walk around. One area, Stellar Cove, was really cool. It was full of caves that you walk through in order to be able to see underwater habitats.

These seals were fun to watch swimming around in their habitat. Josh loved watching them.

Not too far away were the penguins. They had their own little building. Inside were the penguins, some kind of bird that I don't remember, and some turtles. Josh couldn't get enough of following and pointing at the penguins.

Outside the penguin house were these cool sculptures. The kids just had to climb on them, as always.
There's something new at the zoo: dinosaurs. It cost an extra $4 per person for the honor of walking a path with animatronic dinosaurs along the way. I'm glad we went because they were a lot of fun and the kids loved them. Josh didn't show an ounce of fear and just pointed and stared. This particular dinosaur spit at you. If you look closely, you can see the spray hitting the kids. It was a really popular spot with all the kids.

Ok, so I lied just a teensy-weensy bit above. While the first T-Rex didn't scare Josh, this one did. It was HUGE and LOUD. It roared and every time it did Josh jumped. Unfortunately for him, there was also a slide near him that the kids wanted to go down so he had to hear a few roars before we could move on. And move on we did.

After the dinosaurs, we wanted to find the train. On the way, we found this adorable Malaysian Sun Bear. Doesn't he just look adorable there, napping in the sun?

We finally found the train ride and waiting in line. The train loops around parts of the zoo and parts of the Washington Park, a huge park in which the zoo, children's museum, forestry museum, and Japanese garden are all located. Right before we left, another family in our group showed up. Mika wanted to ride with them but they didn't make it on the train so we made very quick plans to meet after their ride returned to the depo. The kids enjoyed the ride and we socialized with yet another family with our group on the ride.

After the ride we, ate our lunch while we waited for our friends. Then we all headed through the Northwest exhibits and the farm exhibit.

In the farm museum, the kids ran and played together. They found this tractor to climb on and we were able to get them to stop just barely long enough to snap this photo. The only one missing is Josh. Don't they look like they are having fun? They are!

After finding our way through the Northwest exhibits, we headed out of the zoo for our next stop: the Portland Children's Museum.

We didn't see everything in the zoo but the kids were getting tired of all the walking. I would definitely visit this zoo again, though. It was a nice one.

OMSI

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry was just awesome! It's similar to the Pacific Science Center in that it was full of hands on learning activities for kids that are fun, fun, fun. But it had some things that the Pacific Science Center doesn't, and that sets it apart.

Our first stop was a dinosaur exhibit area. There was a large room full of dinosaur skeletons; they were anywhere from the size of a large house cat to nearly the full length of the room. There were a few medium-sized animatronic dinosaurs that Josh just pointed to...and pointed to...and pointed to. He was obviously very interested in them. There were a few child-sized tables set up with toy dinosaurs to play with and coloring.

Then we found this popular spot. It was a large pit of rubbery "sand" (for lack of a better word) in which you can bury parts of the dinosaur skeleton, find them, and then put the skeleton together just like a real paleontologist. Josh and Sammy absolutely loved this pit and spent probably 30 minutes or more playing in it before I could drag them away from it.

After that we went upstairs and found even more fun. We found the Life Sciences room. In there were all kinds of activities; more than I could describe. There were things about hearing and sound, including a giant ear model and phones you can talk through to hear moderate hearing loss, severe hearing loss, and tinnitus. There was an exhibit where you could see yourself age. There was a life-size invisible woman where you could see veins and all of the organs, which lit up at the press of a button so you could identify them. A room in the back had some small animals to see like tarantulas, frogs, salamanders, and rats.

The most interesting part of this room (for me) was the prenatal development exhibit. It showed the development of a human embryo and fetus through various weeks of development. It had quite a few weeks displayed from just a couple weeks through 40 weeks...maybe 20-25 or so shown. It was interesting to see that you really can see fingers, toes, and the beginnings of a face at only 8 weeks along. When I got to the end of the exhibit, I finally saw the sign saying these babies we had just been looking at were REAL! They were "specimens" collected back in the 1940s and preserved. It was very interesting but I'm trying not to think about how and why they were collected.

After that room, we moved on and found another dinosaur room where we got stuck for a while again. It had a box with a fossil covered with more rubber sand and paint brushes so the kids could pretend to uncover it like a real professional. There were more skeletons. In a back room there was a paleontology room where we could see actual fossils recently dug up in Wyoming, still in the rock. There was also a watershed room where the kids got stuck at an exhibit where they could play in the water and sand build a salmon-friendly stream.

After that we went to the Science Playground. This is a special room for preschoolers (ages 0-6) but older, well-behaved siblings can enter with an adult and younger sibling. This room was full of fun of all kinds but there were a few special highlights.

There was a large sandbox full of clean, fine, soft, sparkly sand. There were plenty of toys too. Josh loved this spot. As you can see, I buried him.

Sammy loved the sandbox too. Specifically, he liked the various strainers and funnels attached to the wall.

Mika found a hidey-hole in a tree with some stuffed animal friends. Did you know she LOVES stuffed animals and could never have too many? She seemed to really enjoy playing with the young ones who joined her.

The science playground ended up being the kids' favorite part of the museum.

After that, we headed to the planetarium for the Cosmic Collision show. I was surprised that it was basically a film on the domed roof rather than using light up star charts projected to the roof. The film had some neat special effects and 3-D effect but was basically 25 minutes of big bang theory past, big bang theory present, and big bang theory future.

Once we were out of the show, we headed to the sack lunch area and ate. We walked through the turbine room to get there and the kids were suddenly very glad I forced them to leave the other area of the museum. After lunch, we explored the turbine room which was full of all sorts of hands on activities involving natural disasters, physics, and other stuff.

The earthquake house was a huge hit. Mika and Sammy must have gone into that thing at least a dozen times. You chose which of two Seattle-area earthquakes you want to feel and the house starts shaking with the radio playing. During the 6.8 magnitude earthquake the radio goes to ER broadcast and tells the kids what to do in an earthquake. Since I grew up in earthquake country, I verified for them that it does, indeed, feel like a legitimate earthquake.

They also had some activities where you have a goal of building a structure of a certain height using the materials provided and then you push the button to simulate an earthquake to see if your structure will stand. In this photo, we were to build an 18 inch tall water tower with duplos.

There was also a room off of the turbine room with lightweight balls and a variety of contraptions for launching them with air. All three kids loved this room and there were hundreds of balls flying around. Josh loved that the balls floated in the air coming from the blower.

After the ball room, we finished seeing the turbine room. There were air rockets, water rockets, and a Gemini model for the kids to climb in. There were also chemistry and physics labs. We visited the physics labs but skipped the chem lab because Josh was cranky and not willing to sit nicely, not touching things...not a good combo with a chem lab.

We finished our visit by returning to the Science Playground where Sammy spent 45 minutes in the sandbox, Mika found some stuffed animals, and Josh splashed in the water tables. It was a very fun visit. The only thing that would have made it better was to come during the middle of the school year when there aren't hundreds and hundreds of public school kids visiting at the same time.

If you ever get a chance to visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, GO! My kids declared it better than the Pacific Science Center, which they love.

We're here, we're online!

For reasons totally unknown and not understood by me, my computer would not work at my father's house. It blue screened instantly but the wireless internet card wouldn't work. He finally got it working but only with the internet plugged in, not wireless.

For reasons totally unknown and definitely not understood by me, the wireless internet works just fine at the hotel we are now in. The problem is that, in the process of trying to fix my laptop, I know longer am able to access my camera memory card. So, I'll be able to blog but won't be able to upload photos of our trip until we get home. But than not being online at all but still....Bummer!