Like Father, Like Son

Its my (Paul's) turn to post again.

At the end of last week we got a visit from my sister Rachel, her husband Marco, son Damian and daughter Naomi. Damian is a year older than Asher, but Naomi and Madeleine are just a month apart in age. It was lots of fun to have them in town and we took them down to the Playground of Dreams. They had lots of fun playing first on the playground and then in the fountains. Asher's favorite toy was the digger. He got pretty good at working the controls.

He loved the digger so much that we had to drag him away to play in the fountains, but he got over that quickly and had tons of fun.Madeleine had a good time with the fountains, but didn't play with quite the same gusto that Asher did.
We traveled to Portland as the kids crashed that afternoon. The next day my dad and I took Asher on the downtown transit tour. My mom drove us to the bottom of the Oregon Health and Sciences University Tram. We took the tram up to the top of the hill. Asher (and I) loved soaring over Interstate 5 and the rooftops. He wanted to know if we were going to fly over Grandma's house. The views were spectacular. You have great views of downtown Portland and the brand new towers that are getting built around the tram's lower landing. We rode the tram to the hospital, where we got some snacks and then headed back down, because the tram was just the beginning of our adventure. Once down off the hill, we hopped on a waiting streetcar to head downtown to catch the MAX train for the Beaverton Transit Center where my mom would pick us up. Asher was so excited to ride on the streetcar. It made me happy to see that he shares one of my interests. It was also really nice to spend some quality time with my dad. Asher sat next to me at first, and then quickly ditched me for my dad, but I didn't mind since it was a rare 1-on-1 opportunity. Asher was glued to the window and loved every minute of it. All in all the weekend was a roaring success. We had lots of fun with family, but a real highlight for me was to share an afternoon with my son and dad, and sharing one of my real interests with Asher. I don't know if his interest will last until adulthood and in the end I want him to make a profession doing whatever he would like, but it sure was fun for me to share that with him.