Seeing the Sites

The past few months, we've been trying to get out and see more of the sites around here. These are a few of the places we've been:

THE PORTLAND ZOO

The zoo here is good, but not amazing. At least not when you compare it to some of the other zoos around the country. We went twice before Teddy was born and just went for our third time recently. Nayeli loved it- Teddy is still pretty oblivious to something unless you can climb it :)

 In front of the lion den

OREGON MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY (OMSI)

This is a really cool museum downtown- we went when we first moved here but I didn't think it was that great because I didn't go into the right parts and the section for little kids was being remodeled. I recently went again with a friend and the kids and I LOVED it. It was so fun and the there was a lot of fun things for the kids to do. We spent the whole time in the part for little kids it was great.

 In the chipmunk cave. It's become increasingly difficult to get both my kids to look at the camera when there is something fun going on.

 Teddy got SOAKED but had a great time in the water play area.

 Nayeli with her best buddy Audra. They are two little peas in a pod and love to play together.

And finally... the EVERGREEN AVIATION AND SPACE MUSEUM

Okay, so this museum is in a tiny town called McMinnville and so you wouldn't think it would be that cool? Wrong. It's awesome. Some billionaire who grew up in McMinnville had a dream of building an aviation museum in his hometown and he made his dream a reality. It's a very impressive museum.

Outside they had a collection of old tanks. Most had the letters USSR printed on them. It was sobering to think about the battles they had seen and the stories they could tell.

In the center of the museum is Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose"- a large amphibious airplane built during WWII and made completely out of wood. It was gigantic and you could tell there was an enormous amount of thought and engineering that went into it. We didn't pay to go on a tour, but we got to into one part and it was really cool. 

 Please ignore the citizen photographer's finger and pay attention to the giant silver thing behind us. That's the Spruce Goose. It gives you an idea of it's size.

 In front of an original B-17 bomber

The highlight of the museum was taking a tour of an original B-17 bomber from WWII. My maternal grandfather Alonzo William Leckie was a gunner in a bomber similar to the B-17 (I need to find out more about his story) but as I saw the plane and thought about what it would have been like to be a gunner in such a plane, I was in awe. The amount of courage it must have taken for my grandfather and so many other men to step into such a plane is immeasurable. I felt so close to him as I walked inside and looked around; he died when I was 11 and so I have really great memories of him. It was a really beautiful experience. 

There was even a play area for the kids. This was an airplane made by a guy in his garage and then donated to the museum. 

We also visited the space portion of the museum but the airplane part was the highlight. The kids loved it and we loved it. Definitely somewhere we would recommend to others.