Returned from Jill's adopted hometown, Portland

So we spent four nights in Portland last week, returning home Sunday night. As always, it was good to get out of town, and we really owed my sister Jill a visit. She's been making the four-hour drive to visit us quite often since Soren was born, and we had yet to make the reverse trip. We experimented with taking the train down (and then we got a ride back with Sierra, a Seattle friend who joined us for two nights).

We are by no means regular Amtrak riders (it had been about five years since my last jaunt), but it was a great mode of transportation for an energetic, walking toddler. I chased Soren up and down the length of the 9-car train for what felt like the entire 3-1/2-hour journey. One of the conductors was kind enough to let him try on her hat!
But the friendly face at the final destination was worth it. Here's Auntie Jilly with her sweet nephew. She knitted that hat for him! The short story on Jill's career track is that she graduated from nursing school at the end of August, passed her certification exam at the end of September, interviewed for her dream job that week, and was hired and working by mid-October. She's an emergency room nurse at Providence St. Vincent and is part of a new-nurse training program, so she shadows a mentor during the day for her first three months -- before she starts a night shift on her own. We're very proud of her.
On our first full day, Jill had a playdate all lined up for us with the nephew of a nursing school classmate. Kimary (her parents liked both the names Kim and Mary) and Oscar met us at the park and we watched the ducks, shared a snack, chased a ball, etc. The next evening we took Kimary up on her very gracious offer to sit with Soren after he'd fallen asleep, and we gals went out to a wine bar for drinks and dessert. How adult!
Yes, Soren would rather push the stroller than sit in it himself. Jill's backpack got a ride down this sidewalk. Look at that grin!
This is the only good photo that was taken of Jill's 600-square-foot apartment, but it wasn't as crowded/noisy as I had feared. Soren slept in a borrowed Pack-n-Play that we screened in with a nearby closet door and a hanging sarong, and we would go whisper in the kitchen for 10 minutes and then he would be asleep and we would bang pots, talk normally, etc. Soren slept just like he does at home; a good lesson for me that he doesn't need tiptoeing around as much as we do. (Yes, those are Tweety Bird slippers Soren is trying on for size!)
This is the entrance to Jill's classic apartment building in a very walkable part of southeast Portland: near the Belmont and Hawthorne street districts. And very close to a Stumptown Coffee bar (a Portland original), which served the best cup of drip French Roast coffee I've ever had!
Happily, I was able to connect and have lunch with my sophomore college roommate, Karin, who is a surgical resident at the same university hospital where Jill just graduated from. We hadn't seen each other in over 10 years, but we both exclaimed, "You look the same!" Except that she's pregnant and due in a month (doesn't she look great?) and I have a Soren-appendage. Otherwise, exactly the same.
And here's the happy Testerman trio on the Portland waterfront (thus Soren's bollard seat). We browsed the Saturday crafts market and ate a picnic lunch. It was colder than it looks, but we are a hardy Northwest lot.
Here's our friend Sierra, who was the Seattle driver who joined us for her weekend off. We three women were all friends way back in elementary school. How wonderful that we still are!
We also attended a family-friendly contra dance one evening, took the MAX light rail to the Children's Museum (see Soren's account), introduced Jill to IKEA, went Goodwill shopping for new jeans for me (Jill and Sierra ordered me to throw out my old ones!), and generally had a good time.

I'll sign off with these shots of us on one of the pedestrian bridges that crosses the Willamette River. Portland really is a beautiful (and to my mind, manageable) city, and I'm sure we'll be visiting Jill lots more.