Internet, fiiiiinally!!!

Yayyy...we finally have internet! We moved to Portland about three weeks ago, and it has been really hectic. We've been having a lot of fun too.

The day after we got here, there was a "Not Back to School Day" at the Oaks Amusement Park. The park is about 100 years old. We didn't make any friends, but Tania had fun on the rides. There were all types of homeschoolers there: big families, small families, religious families, secular families...I even saw a gothic family. It was a really cool way to spend our first day.

We've mostly been spending time setting up our new house. The garage sales here are amazing. We've gotten so many cool things. One of the things we got was an old-school typewriter. Tania has been using it to write little stories.

Portland has this huge park called Washington Park. It was designed by the same brothers who designed Central Park in New York City. Inside the park is the Oregon Zoo. We took Tania there a couple of weeks ago. The zoo is huge. Hawaii's zoo has more animals, but Oregon's zoo is larger and prettier. It's a very pleasant place to visit. There's a large lawn with a stage where there are sometimes concerts.

There's another place in Washington Park called the World Forestry Discovery Museum. We went there a few days ago. The exhibits teach about the different forests of the world: how they exist as ecosystems, how they are threatened, and what the public can do to help. I really enjoyed it there. I learned a lot of new things about forests in Russia, China, Africa and South America, to name a few areas. Tania got to ride in a tree lift that took her to the top of a tall tree.

I think my favorite attraction that we have been to has been OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It's the coolest place. They have a chemistry lab and a physics lab in which you can do actual experiments. Just about every exhibit is interactive. It's not far from where we live, so we walked. It just happened to be the one day it rained since we got here though, so we got soaked.

We've been to some cool parks, like Laurelhurst Park, Mt. Tabor Park and Crystal Springs Rododendron Garden. We go to our local park, Brooklyn Park, just about every day. Tania has made a little friend who lives right across the street from the park. I love our area. We're in the Southeast part of Portland, but we're slightly removed from the trendy neighborhoods. Not that I don't enjoy visiting those neighborhoods, I just like the quiet of our neighborhood. All the homes here are old and full of character.

So, we're liking Portland. We miss Hawaii, but we're getting used to it here.