Portland Day 5: Quick, before we have to leave

Our last day in Portland we went back downtown to do as much as we could before it was time to go.  Portland has a lot of restaurants that provide sustainably grown, local, organic foods, so I had a list of a few restaurants I was hoping to visit.  At lunchtime we ate at Chef Naoko, the tiniest, most delicious Japanese restaurant, and then we headed to the Portland Art Museum for an hour or so.  When we came out of the museum we walked around in some beautiful areas downtown and took some pictures:

This is Jane flirting with a scary hoodlum near us who
was smiling and making googly-eyes at her.

After this we stopped at Portland's beautiful public library so that I could print off our boarding passes for the next day.  They have lovely, huge arched windows and the trees outside were just starting to get gorgeous green leaves.

(This is not my photo)

We got back in the car and drove up to the Pittock Mansion which sits right above Portland.  Jane fell asleep on the way, so Michael stayed in the car with her while I ran inside the mansion to get in on the very last tour before they closed for the day.

When I got back to the car Jane was just waking up, so we all walked around the grounds for a little while so Michael could see the beautiful views of the city.

(Again, not my photo)

After that we went to the delicious Farm Cafe where I had the best rhubarb crumble I've ever had.  Yummm.  Jane ate cheerios and watched Tangled on our ipod, how very unprogressive of her. =)

The next day we flew home.  We tried to plan our morning trip to the airport so that it was during Jane's nap and she could sleep in the car, but she didn't fall asleep until just before we had to park.  We tried leaving her in the car seat while we made our way to the gate so that she could sleep a little longer, which I never thought would work, but she somehow stayed asleep EVEN WHEN A JET FLEW RIGHT OVERHEAD.  Michael and I just looked at each other in shock.  Of course, when we set the carseat on the ground so we could check our bags, then she wakes up.  So she slept for a total of, hmm, 10 minutes or so?

Luckily, I was the third person on the plane so I was able to choose our seats right behind the bulkhead.  JACKPOT!  Check it out:

Walking room!  Jane unloaded the diaper bag and threw all her little toys on the floor and was able to move around (corralled by Michael's leg that you see in the photo), and she generally had a great time.  Amazing for practically no sleep.  Success!  It was a nice finishing touch to our trip.

We didn't do as much as we thought we would, but we still had a great time as a little family just doing things together.  What fun!

Portland Day 4: Washington Park

Washington Park is a huge park adjacent to downtown Portland (uphill) that has miles and miles of hiking trails, a Children's Museum, the Oregon Zoo, the Portland Japanese Garden, a Forestry Discovery Museum, an International Rose Test Garden, an arboretum, an amphitheater, a railway, a children's park, and I'm sure some other stuff I don't know about.  We probably could have spent several days discovering this park, but we only had a few hours in between Jane's naps to see a few things.

We started at the Children's Museum.  There's a similar place here in Salt Lake, but Jane has never been before, and she absolutely LOVED it.  For the first time we weren't herding her around, telling her she couldn't touch things, or go places.  She could go anywhere!  And play with anything!  We could have spent the whole day there.  This is her with a little Jane-sized shopping cart:

After playing at the children's museum we took a bus to another part of the park where they have a lot of gardens.  We decided to go to the Japanese gardens, which was high enough to have a view of downtown Portland and Mt. Hood behind it.  (That's where we took the photo I put on the blog of me with Mt. Hood behind.)

The Japanese gardens were much bigger than the Chinese garden we had seen the day before and I don't think we saw even half of it.

Washington Park was the hardest day for us, mostly because there was just so much to do and not enough time.  Poor Jane slept for only a few minutes in the car on the way back to the hotel.  So once we got back we decided to take Jane to the pool for the first time ever!

Her swimsuit has ruffles!

Jane pretty much clung to Mommy the entire time, but she relaxed after awhile and thought Daddy was really funny when he went under the water and blew bubbles!  We went over to the hot tub and let Jane dangle her feet in the warm water, and she LOVED that.  Plus, the little curls on the back of her neck scrunched right up and everyone there thought she was adorable!  We already knew that, but the curls help. =)