Monday, September 3, 2012

Day at the Museum

We slept in quite a bit today, still exhausted from the extensive weekend of planning and work.  Fortunately, today was Labor Day, so everyone could sleep in - that meant no school!  Mommy made everyone a very big breakfast, which was delicious as always.  And by around eleven or so, we were out of the house and on our way to the day's destination:


The Fernbank Science Center.  It wasn't hard to find, and we were quite blessed to have an easy trip there.  Madison is apparently entering a phase now that you hear made fun of on television: "When will we get there?"  "Are we almost there?"  "Where are we going again?"

We walked up and posed in front of the dinosaurs out front of the museum, and then went inside the atrium, inspired by "Jurassic Park," evidently.  But much cooler.  Here were two reproductions of dinosaur skeletons:  they're so big they wouldn't fit in one camera shot.


That was probably the best part of the museum, really.  These things tower over everyone - to Madison they must have been impossibly big.  There's a staggeringly large Argentinosaurus, which is essentially a really big brontosaurus, which of course is a name that doesn't really exist anymore (see previous discussion about sauropods).  And the carnivore that's attacking is not - as I was telling Madison - a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  It's actually a Giganotosaurus.  Which is pretty much a T-Rex, only slightly larger.    So, what else was there to see and do at the museum?


We made bubbles!  Yes, I know we could do this at home.  But these were scientific bubbles.  I think the point of this exercise was to see different colors in the bubbles.  Yes, the word "hearing" is on the wall there.  I have no idea why.  This room was one of the better rooms for Madison, who got to experience a lot of different hands-on optical illusions, and even an indoor tornado!


It's a twister!  It's a twister!  This room was a lot of fun for all of us.  Madison, Mommy and Daddy spoke to each other from one side of the room to the other in giant concave areas that picked up sound from across the room.  One thing Mommy and Madison were fascinated with was a series of tubes that you listened to - each tube was a different length and each tube produced a different tone.  It was like listening to different-sized sea shells.

We made our way through the museum - Mommy enjoyed the clothing and jewelry displays, while Daddy and Madison predictably enjoyed the big dinosaurs.  The Georgia History exhibit reminded us of a Bass Pro display, with more words.  The highlight for Madison would be the Naturequest area at the top of the museum.  Bridges spanned across, connecting tree houses that looked like some sort of Ewok village.  Pulleys were tugged, buttons pressed, puzzles assembled, and rocks hopped across.  Live alligators welcomed everyone in, as ocean-themed mobiles dangled and spun lazily overhead.  There were places to crawl into, and nets to climb upward on.  In short, there was a lot for Madison to do here - which she took care of in short order.

Finally, it was approaching time to go.  Mommy came up with the brilliant idea for all of us to have ice cream outside on the back deck, overlooking the "Fernbank Forest."  The weather was just right for this sort of activity, and the three of us sat outside enjoying the beautiful day outside.

Soon after we left, although we did do a bit of shopping in the souvenir store before we went to the parking lot.  Daddy and Madison had an improv puppet show in the store, as Mommy did yet some more Christmas shopping for Madison when no one was looking!

When we got home, we squeezed in some more piano practice just before dinner - and had just enough time to see a movie.  Our choice:  "Night at the Museum 2."  Last night we watched the first one, and with the theme of the day going, Madison wanted to watch the next movie in the series.

We had a pretty full day, obviously, and it was a great deal of fun just being together as a family.  But we all went to bed early - tomorrow is school and work again.  Still, it was a very nice day together!

"The Tuskegee Airmen are living in the moment!" 
- Tuskagee Airman

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