Family Adventure Day!

Since Samuel rode the train to work most of the summer and we met him at the train station several times, the kids had been asking to take their own ride.  Without telling them, we booked 4 round trip tickets to Portland and made plans to spend our Saturday there and hoped to be able to go to the zoo.  Our plans were changed a bit when the train we were to take broke down before it got to our station and was over 4 hours behind.  We played at a park in town for a bit and were able to get seats on an earlier bus to Portland instead.  We spent the afternoon walking around Riverfront Park and exploring the farmer's market.

He was amazed by all the buildings, roads and bridges.

So happy to be running after being soooo good on the hour long bus ride.

She was perfectly happy to sit and watch from the stroller.

It was a very hot day (close to 90's I believe) and we were all roasting.  We found an ice cream stand and tried to cool off.

Near the ice cream booth, we discovered a fountain.  Since we didn't have an extra change of clothes for the kids, they were happy to take their shoes off and splash for a bit.

We were able to ride the train back home.  The kids were so excited to climb on board and we spent the trip home watching the scenery out the windows, snacking, and Malachi using the fascinating train bathroom like 20 times (only exaggerating a little bit!).  

Despite the big change in plans and the very hot day, we had a great family day exploring, getting energy out, people watching and riding the train.  The kids talked about it for weeks afterward and continue to ask when we'll ride again!