The Next Two Days

Friday we had originally planned to go into Portland, but after spending many hours in the car driving along the coast on Thursday, we decided it would be better all around to stay around Salem. Instead, I took Amelia and Cooper to the children's museum in Salem called the A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village. It consisted of three houses with different interactive rooms, an outdoor play area and stations. I think the kids liked it.....we were there for over 2 1/2 hours!!

In this room the kids could build with the puzzle pieces. They opted to have a sword fight instead. Just so you  know, neither one won. The Great and Powerful Mommy swooped in from the sidelines and defeated them both at the same time wielding swords in both hands.

Amelia posing for me at the bubble station.

In the railroad room there was this dome so the kids could get really close to the train that circled around.

Happy to be outside.

I think one of the favorite stations was the bubble one. Amelia and Cooper stayed there for a long time, and came back to it three times.

Cooper's bubble.

Amelia's bubble. She worked for fifteen minutes straight to get the perfect one.

On the porch of one of the houses was this huge rocking chair.

These bikes sit outside the front of the museum, too.

This room was their favorite, they stayed in here for over 35 minutes! There was a screen that showed their movements but with added.....something. I'll try and post a picture below because I can't explain it!

This is what the screen looked like.

After we left the Discovery Village, we went back to Katie and David's to help them with their ward potluck they had that night. We went for a short time then I came back with Cooper, who was veeeeeeery tired.

The next day was SATURDAY!!!!! This was a fun day because it was the "Girls' Lunch Out" and "Boys' Lunch Out". Katie, Amelia and I went to lunch at a fabulous bistro called Word of Mouth. Amelia ordered cinnamon roll pancakes and they were bigger than her head! It was also her first experience with cloth napkins. She didn't quite know what to do with it (having been told her whole life NOT to wipe her mouth on her clothes---and that's what a cloth napkin is made of), so our sweet waitress brought her some paper ones so she could fully enjoy the experience!

The boys.

The girls.

 After lunch we met up with the "men", who had gone to lunch at a pizza place, at David's campus (Willamette) where he attends law school, and where he will get his MBA next year before returning to finish law school. The campus was beautiful and had Adirondack chairs scattered around for students to relax in. There were also a group of trees that formed a star when you looked up from the middle of them. Here's a kinda good picture:

You get the general idea.

The capital building. It's right across the street from campus.

Campus.

Amelia sitting on the oldest building still in use in the U.S.

Cooper sitting on the other side!

This is the creepy sculpture Katie talked about in her blog. Cooper tried and tried and tried to take the things out of his briefcase, but failed. As we were leaving he asked me, "Can I kick the guy in the head?" What?! NO!  Geez. Boys.

Amelia was thoroughly perplexed by this "forever" law student.

After we walked around campus we tool a short trip to the river front. Cooper was getting cranky and he and Amelia were starting to fight and whine. We took a quick ride on the carousel:

                                     And went back to Katie and David's to call it a day!

Stay tuned for the next post entitled, "Two Days After That". Look for it Sunday or Monday. I'm tired.