Downtown Portland

We decided our family adventure for the week was to take the "train" (the light rail) that Daddy takes to work and go see his office down town.
The kids loved hearing the train coming down the tracks before they could see it.

The short ride on the train there was really fun. It was packed on the way back so we took turns standing, which of course the kids thought was fun.

We got off at Pioneer Square. There was a walk for liver disease going on in the square so they had little booths set up that you could go to with lots of different things to see. The kids loved the balloon woman. She was dressed like a clown. She made the boys and Katie swords (Katie is quiet the "Tom Boy"), then she made the girls puppies. What a treat!

Then we had a very short train ride the few blocks up to David's office (you ride for free in the downtown area). David usually walks it, but we didn't want to tire the kids out to early. This is his building. It has over 36 floors. David works on the 14th floor. He loves it. The view is incredible.

Joelle had to sit at Davids desk before we left. Just in case she never got the chance again.

This is looking out a window of one of the bigger offices on the floor. If you look closely you can see either Mt. Hood or Mt. St. Helens (we are not quite sure which one :) in the background. You can see the other mountain from the other side of the floor. It was really neat.

After David's office we went down to Chapman square park that is right next to the his building. That is where I took the picture of his building. I thought I took pictures of the kids there, but apparently not. It was so pretty. It had some pioneer statues and some really fun fountains. Then we walked back down to the shopping area of pioneer square to go to the huge toy store Finnegan's. Once again no pictures. This time it wasn't because I forgot, it was because trying to keep track of 5 kids in a huge toy store was a little harder than we were expecting. Then realizing that we forgot to tell the kids we weren't buying any toys before we went in, we had to do some damage control. All in all it went very well. We walked away with a bug catcher (so they will stop using my Tupperware :), and some dollar bird whistles. Not bad.
After that we went to Mcdonalds. Hurray - my favorite (heavy on the sarcasm).

Lastly we went to Portland's Central Library. It was large and beautiful. I don't think it was as big as Phoenix's library, but it felt like it had a lot of history. The entryway was marble and very grand. It had a huge staircase going up. It was a very cool experience. I am looking forward to going back.