Thursday June 24, 2010 - Portland, Oregon

Our first day solo in Portland. Kind of strange to be knocking around another person's house while they're not there. There's a sense of duty and obligation in keeping up the adopted routines and rituals, in trying to make sure that when they return, they aren't regretful that you were there.

The morning was spent in the usual necessities of school and various meals and squeezing in some work and laundry. But the highlight of the day was the late afternoon. We headed to one of our favorite local places here in Northeast Portland - McMeniman's Kennedy School. We had stopped there for a celebratory snack after picking me up from the airport on Monday, and noticed that they were playing How to Train Your Dragon. Since the kids had been excited about the movie through t-shirts and Happy Meal toys for several months now, they were very interested as to whether we were going to see the movie.

I told them it was pointless until they had their own dragon.

So today we just told them that we had a surprise for them, and we loaded up the van and drove the mile to the former school building. Alec figured it out first, and the others quickly caught on.

We had seen the movie Up here last fall when we visited. We knew it had a *very* comfortable and child-friendly theater (and only $3 per ticket!), and that you could order pizza and have it delivered to you in the theater so you could eat while you watched. Pretty cool, eh? The seats are mostly couches and love seats and recliners interspersed with tables to put your food on. So we ordered a pepperoni pizza and settled in. We had arrived about an hour early, so the bulk of our eating was done before the movie started - good planning on our part!

The kids had a blast. Alec was thoroughly engrossed in the movie, particularly excited by the dragon chases and fire spitting and other such good stuff. They were all plenty tired by the time we got home, and were quickly asleep. A very fun day!