Yay for Saturday!

Yesterday we took the kids up to Portland for the whole day and first did OMSI, and then went to Oaks Amusement Park. Who knew that this little gem existed? When we got to OMSI, Matthew had an absolute blast. He was trying everything out. It's basically one very large children's museum, with of course adult things too. They have a lot of exhibits, but we chose to just go the kids route for this trip. Matthew got to see how electricity works, how an earthquake feels..it was pretty cool! Upstairs was their "body" exhibit. Pretty much just everything relating to how the body works. I was very impressed. They had this whole section devoted to development of babies while in utero. They had these enclosed see through glass boxes, and inside each box was an actual embryo, or a fetus, and they started at 28 days gestation, and they went up every few days, to weeks, until the baby was 32 weeks gestation. These were REAL babies they used for this exhibit, (donated to science due to various reasons beyond control of life) and let me tell you, it doesn't get any more real than that. To see an actual fetus of each one of these stages was incredible. I was excited to see just how big the babies look at 20 weeks, just about the time you have that big u/s to determine the sex. They are soooo little! Mike was a bit weirded out by the realness factor. I thought it was incredible. They banned photography and filming, otherwise I would have snapped some pics of it. It was a circular display, so you walked the entire circle, looking at each see through box, until the end. Pretty neat!

Afterwards, we went over to Oaks Park. OMG. Matthew was over the moon! We had told him about going to OMSI, but didn't tell him we were going to the park as we wanted it to be a secret surprise. They had all sorts of rides! Think fair rides, and some more permanent ones too. The fair rides were soo much nicer than riding them at the fair. They just were cleaner, and more smooth riding? I don't know how to explain it. It was just more comforting knowing these rides were permanent, and weren't going to be torn down in a few days. We rode all of the rides and had so much fun. Matthew's last ride of the night was the Octopus with me. I was pretty much done, but he was anxious to ride it again, and so we went. Oh my...he was hooting and hollering the whole time, laughing so hard. I am like, I want off now, (because it spins you soooo fast at times) but he was laughing hysterically. I am glad I have a kid that is such a ride lover. He just has a blast. We left around 9pm, and had the task of driving home the 2 hours it would take to get here. Man, seeing our exit was never better. I think we will be staying home for awhile. It was the last weekend they would be open for rides, the rest of the time, they just stay open for their skating rink. We will for sure go back next summer. What fun!