Our Day

The little man commented the other day about it being a long time since we rode MAX.  May of last year to be accurate.  So we made a plan that when Sissy was on her girl scout camp out we would ride MAX to downtown Portland and poke around a bit. 
Today was the day and he woke me up telling me it was ride the MAX day. We got up and had some coffee/breakfast.  The little man has been all about NIKE lately.  And so spur of the moment I asked him if he wanted to also hit the NIKE store while we were down there.  It is about 13 blocks from the fountain and The Saturday Market.  We looked it up and we could ride MAX there from the fountain. He was all for it.
We got to the park and ride and rode MAX downtown.  We poked around in the Saturday Market a bit.  He found a snake he just loved so we got it.  He played in the fountain and loved it.  We saw a man with a NIKE bag and it was so cool.  It had neon yellow handles.  We had lunch watching boats on the river and neither of us was in any hurry.  We listened to street performers and passed out some of the gold dollars I got back in change from MAX.  And then he asked if it was time to go to the NIKE store.
We walked in the NIKE store and it is very nice and modern and upbeat.  They had activities going on for back to school.  The little man ended up getting a caricature done.  We first looked at the shoes.  Um.  No.  I won't say never, but I don't intend to buy shoes at the NIKE store ever.  They are expensive.  Now granted there were a few I had not seen elsewhere and they were pretty cool.  But I'm not spending $100 on a pair of shoes for a six year-old.  Then we tried to find some hats.  They were out of youth baseball hats.  The person helping us suggested we check the hat store across the street.  We didn't.  We found a cool t-shirt that he liked for $20.  Now normally I don't spend $20 for a t-shirt, but I understand.  It is a NIKE one and we did buy it at the NIKE store.  And we had to buy something to get that cool bag.  Well when we went up to pay because we bought something out of the youth section we got a goody bag.  It was a pencil bag with pencils, eraser, Nike patches for backpacks and a key ring.  Now how cool was that.  So while the frugal side of me was cringing at the price of the shoes, the frugal side of me says we got more than $20 worth of enjoyment out of our experience at the NIKE store. 
Then we walked a block and hopped MAX back to the car.  He fell asleep on the way home.  I got a nap once we were home and he went to play with a friend.  And now we are eating Thai food.  A superb "our day".