Our Urban Adventure

Yesterday I packed the kids up for a real-life urban adventure. There is a park downtown in the Pearl District called The Fields Neighborhood Park that I wanted to check out. It just opened a couple of months ago. With a blatant disregard for naptime we headed out on what Tommy called our TriMet Adventure since we had to take a bus, the MAX, and then the streetcar to get there. Have I mentioned that I love not having a car? Really.

The park was pretty awesome. It's situated right by the Willamette River, which affords a gorgeous view of the Fremont Bridge. The actual playground equipment was a little bit too old for the likes of my kiddos, but there was a fun giant sandbox that they played in for over an hour. Someone (more likely many someones) donated a bunch of sand toys for all the kiddos to play with. It was pretty awesome. We also saw tons of dogs, which the kids love. People in Portland have a thing for dogs. (For those who are interested there is actually a dog gym right next to the dog park, just in case your canine doesn't want to get his paws muddy.)

After we played and ate lunch at The Fields we decided to venture about for a bit. We moseyed (I spell-checked that, don't worry) through Tanner Springs Park looking for small fish and a turtle some girl said she saw there. Then we started walking down the street to wait for the streetcar to take us back home. As we walked we heard the sound of rushing water and screaming children and I knew we'd be lucky to make it home before dinnertime.

We stumbled upon Jamison Square, which was way cooler in real life than it is on the Internet. I urged my kiddos to go play even though we didn't have swimming suits or even a change of clothes. Tommy jumped right in, explored the whole fountain, and then found some other boys to pal around with. Lily was a little more cautious, wading in only to her ankles for awhile. Once she got comfortable, though, that little girl was literally rolling through the water, lapping it up like a dog as she crawled. I told one of Ben's coworkers that we had visited Jamison Square and the only thing she said about was, "Oh, yeah! That fountain's always full of...um...children."

Three parks in one day isn't too bad! We played until nearly 4:00 and then decided we should probably start our hour-long trek home. The kids could have stayed there all day. I stripped Lily down to her diaper (luckily I had a dry one of those or that would have been a disaster) and figured nobody would be too offended by a baby wearing only a diaper and pink jelly shoes in public. Tommy took his shirt off and ventured home Huck-Finn-style. Next time you see a mom with two half-naked children, just assume they had a really awesome unplanned adventure rather than judge her as an unfit parent :)

That was our whole day. It was one of those carefree, take-it-all-in, be-totally-present, forget-all-the-rules kinds of days. I need those once in awhile to stay sane. Also, my kids are cute and I love them. And I LOVE Portland. What a cool place to live.