Spring Break

 We had an amazing vacation in Portland for Spring Break this year!

This was Luke's second plane ride, but his first one that he would actually know what's going on.  Getting through security wasn't as difficult as I had anticipated.  Luke seemed excited to go on an airplane, and taking off only added to his excitement.  Then he looked out the window the entire time, until the clouds covered his view.  He kept saying "wow" to everything he saw.

We were on our way to visit cousin Bella for the week, and Luke and Bella have a love hate relationship.  Most of the time they loved each other, but they had their hate moments.  Portland is an amazing place for kids to visit.  Bella was a wonderful hostess, or I should say Aunt Brooke was fabulous.  Every day was filled with a new adventure.  We had so much fun, that I didn't even remember to take lots of photos!

 Our first stop was this fabulous children's museum.  I have never seen anything like it before.  Each room was filled with a new adventure to try.  The water room was Luke's favorite!  Each child wore a water proof smock, and they were off to play and splash around. 

 There were buckets to fill, and wheels to turn to dump out water.  There were balls and rubber duckies to float down and around, it was just a water wonderland.  The other rooms consisted of a veterinarian clinic for you to play animal doctor.  There was a grocery store and a cafe to pretend shop and eat.  Which included shelves of pretend food, shopping carts, cash registers, pizza ovens, refrigerators, microwaves etc.  This museum was amazing!  There was a craft room, where ANYTHING was ok.  If you wanted to glue your fingers together, it was acceptable and even applauded.  There was a theater room with all kinds of dress up clothes and a stage for your audience.  There was a dig pit with everything recycled foam that resembled dirt.  It was all simply the neatest things I have ever seen.  Everything was perfectly Luke's size just ready for him to explore.

 Our next stop was the zoo.  The Oregon zoo is HUGE.  SO much to see and do.  We had to ride the train, and Luke was so excited to be riding a choo-choo train in real life!  We were able to see lots of animals on our train ride.  It was only a trick to keep Luke inside the train!

 Even Clara seemed to enjoy the train ride!

 One of my most favorite moments of the entire trip, was this moment inside the zoo, where we went in to feed these birds.  I can't remember what these birds were called, but I'm assuming they are closely related to parakeets.  You could buy "juice" for them to drink, which was some sort of nectar.  I'm guessing its pretty sweet because Luke decided to give it a taste, and said "yummy" after wards.  All you had to do was hold out your cup, and the birds would fly down to you and get a sip.

 I was hesitant that Luke would even do this.  He seems to be a scardey cat about these kinds of things.  I thought for sure the bird would come up to him, and he would drop his cup and run away.  He surprised me, and was so enthralled with the birds.  He kept going for more, and kept saying "wow" the whole time.  He thought it was awesome!

 I thought it was pretty awesome too!  I even got one of the birds to land on my arm, and Bella and Luke got that bird to drink from their cups!

 Then their juice was all gone, and they still decided to chase the birds, I guess they liked feeding the birds a little too much!

 Clara spent her time at the zoo, all bundled up in a nice stroller ride.

 It was ever so slightly raining while we were at the zoo, which made our zoo watching experience slightly better!  The animals were much more active, and put on a nice show!  The hippos were amazing, they were out and walking around, not just laying there in the hot sun.  The penguins and sea lions were also WAY cool, swimming around.  The kids thought it was all so cool!

 We even got to see the Lions roaming around, yawning and playing!

 Our next stop was a huge jungle gym just for the kids.  It was 4 or 5 levels high and full of things to do.  We had to burn lots of energy because these kids kept feeding off of each other and seemed like energizer bunnies.  We had to wear them out, and this jungle gym was the place to do it!

Luke love the slides!

Portland is also very baby friendly.  There were specific baby or infant areas every where we went.  Areas meant just for the little ones, and Clara enjoyed crawling around and finding new toys to play with as well.

Every night included bike rides around the house and the bouncy house.  Bella was constantly asking Luke, "you want to ride the bike? Ride the bike Luke?" Bella wanted to drive, and Luke turned out to be a pretty good rider.  It was hours of entertainment.

 

The last place we went to is called OMSI- Oregon Museum of Science Institute.  

We had SO much fun here, I completely forgot to take any pictures :(

It was also filled with a water section for you to play with and an indoor sand pit. 

Luke LOVED the sand pit!

There was also a ball area with tubes that you could put the balls in to be sucked in our pushed out.

Luke loves anything balls, so he spent a lot of time with the balls.

Sometimes it worries me that Luke never looks around to see where his parents are,

which was the case at this museum.

Luke just has so much fun, he doesn't care if he is there alone.

This was one of the best trips we have ever taken.  It was full of adventure and new experiences for Luke, which were all kid friendly.  Our flight home couldn't have worked out better.  Both kids fell asleep during take-off, and woke up only minutes before landing.  I guess they had a week so full of fun they were exhausted!