I’m grateful for my city who puts on a light festival in the darkest of winter. It lights up my creativity and I love seeing the art people crafted with light.
I visited the World Trade Center hub for an hour downtown and was greeted with colorful sea creatures, pulsing interactive displays, and a cheerfully illuminated crowd to celebrate with.
Ever since the first Portland Winter Light Festival that I learned they had an illuminated bike ride, it was on my list to do.
After years of poor weather or scheduling conflicts, I finally joined fellow wheeled enthusiasts who decorated their wheels with vivid creativity.
My bike was already strapped with multiple lights to help with winter visibility for my commute, but I added a RGB photography LED to my handlebar and strapped a bubble machine to the rear rack.
The blinding and colorful lights. The bass-bumping music visualizers. The trampoline that blossomed color through movement. The rainbow ball pit.
Hopscotch, an immersive art experience, overloaded our eyes with color and lights and the interactivity inspired the giddy child inside to play.
Here were our favorite exhibits that gave us a rainbow connection.
We visited Hoffman Farm’s pumpkin patch with our neighbors to pick up Halloween decor and the boys got through the corn maze in under an hour!
We checked out an indoor aquatic park in Clackamas, Oregon, and enjoyed their amenities for the “Big Surf” session. They had a deep wave pool with clear tubes and three water slides to propel out of.
Since it’s indoors, I can see us visiting in the winter when we need to get out of the house. The North Clackamas Aquatic Park is closer to home than Wings and Waves and Great Wolf Lodge, and is much more economical. Even though we were out of district, it cost us $60 for one and half hours of playtime.
There was one route I had not rode yet for the Portland Bridge Pedal—the longest one—the Fremont Express. In 2018, I walked 5 miles for the Bridge Stride, biked the 12-mile family route in 2019, caravanned with Jake for the 20-mile main route in 2021, and added a bubble machine and Bruce for 2022’s family route.
This year, I completed all of the routes with the 23-mile Fremont Express.
For Jenni’s birthday, we drove to the Mox Boarding House to admire their games collection, play Marvel United against the Green Goblin, and savor their food selection.
There are so many amazing displays of creativity and engineering at Bricks Cascade. Our family looks forward to this LEGO convention every year to marvel at the imagination using LEGO bricks. From the gigantic Jurassic Park to the microscale Andor diorama, we are amazed at what the builders can do.
We’re grateful for all of the builders who invested their time and creativity for us to enjoy one afternoon.
One of our favorite attractions in any city is an aquarium. We love admiring creatures that dwell in our vast oceans.
My personal favorite are the jellyfish. This was the first time I saw jellyfish that glow and glitter!