Mass Transit and Museums

Yesterday's sojourn into the 'burbs paid off today. Armed with 2 youth monthly passes and a day pass for me, a TRIMET iphone app, a little bit of cash and some gusto we headed out the first of many to come adventures using public transportation.


Our plan was to take the bus from our neigh-
borhood downtown and then catch the street train to Wash-
ington Park (which, remember, we had already scoped out) and hike around the trails. We got to Pioneer Square, did a little bit of people watching, looked around and decided after Wash-
ington Park we would hang out there for a while and peek around. Believe it or not, we haven't ever been to this main artery of downtown. In fact, (confessing my ignorance) I thought the Pearl District was the heart of downtown. I know, I know...
the shame!


Once we got to Wash-
ington Park, and the boys remembered what it was, they decided hiking around did not sound like as much fun as the Children's Museum that was closed when we had been there on the 4th. Also, the fact that is was hovering around 60 degrees with a breeze and they were in short sleeves while I wore my sweater (did you look at the date on this post-wearing a sweater this late in year?!) and we were all a bit chilly, made it an easy sell. I did try to warn them that the museum might be a bit "young" for them, but they were not deterred (and they were indeed the oldest kids in the place.)

The museum did have some fun, if not young, exhibits. A water station with all kinds of ways to get wet and play, a mini pet hospital (Romney upset a very small boy who was caging all the stuffed animals by undoing all his hard work and yelling "you're free!"--that's my boy.),


The bulk of our time was spent in an area for building things and running pipes in walls like when homes are built. Both kiddos enjoyed building tower after tower and then having me video them as they knocked them down. It was in an area with a stage complete with monitor, music and stage lights where William found a wooden xylophone and plunked out the first couple of octaves of "Seven Nation Army" by Whitestripes, impressing the tattooed father sitting next to me in the "audience" with William's coolness. I am sure it was music to sore ears as his little tikes couldn't have been more than 1 and 3 respectively (the age of bad Barney songs).


Other museum highlights included the kid size grocery store where Romney tried to have a rational con-
versation with a 2 year old about why she should only be using one of the two check out counters to check out her groceries. And William took great pride in helping clean up the whole store and help the little kids who didn't know how to use the registers.


My personal favorite exhibit was the 4 foot high, 4 foot wide light-bright. What can I say? I am a child of the 70's. After our museum time, we rode back to Pioneer Square to explore around for a second until it was time to head home to pick up Bill from his day's work at the house.


With Bill, we did a little shopping and found a LEGO store. The boys were in heaven as they played with all kinds of cool interactive lego technology and checked out the latest toys. After that was dinner at a take out place called "Noodles", an evening bike ride for Bill, blogging for me and a Harry Potter movie for the boys- rounding out another fun NEW adventure.