Saturday, October 22, 2011

My little big guy

This kid is beyond adorable. He makes my heart explode with love when he smiles. I can't get enough of him!



THIS is what tired looks like

It only took a few minutes in the car for Sawyer to conk out. He was absolutly exhausted after our day in Seattle. It was late in the evening though and we were worried that if he took a long nap in the car that he wouldn't go to bed later in the night. I asked Brandon to wake him up when were about halfway home. That kid could not be taken out of his deep sleep.

Brandon shook him and flopped his arms around.

He formed his little fingers into a rock pose and made him play air guitar.

And the creepiest move of all: he pulled his eyelids wide open to expose his eyes to the light. But nothing.

We were all dying with laughter. It was hilarious. Nothing could wake that little boy up. We decided to quit picking at him and let him sleep. But not until we got it on video. Please excuse my idiodic laughter.

And for the record, he went to bed on time that night and snoozed until the morning.

Blast from the past*

*Please excuse the lame title of this post. It's all I could think of at 2:09am

We visited the dinosaur exhibit last. This isn't a very big part of the museum, and it never changes, but the boys will forever love it. It's a classic.

Sawyer wasn't to sure about hanging out around a bunch of giant lizards. He was especially wary of the ones that moved and roared.


Logan is such a goofball.

Fossilized dinosaur poop. I don't think Logan was too impressed.

Would you believe me if I said that we don't encourage this type of sophmoric behavior in our children? Didn't think so. Well, it was worth a try.

When we were done with the dinosaurs we left the Pacific Science Center and headed back to the Center House for a quick ice cream before we left.

It was a long day, but it was filled with some great experiences. We all had so much fun, and it was nice getting to spend time with Grandma Shellie. We are all so lucky that she is a part of our lives. She loves the boys so much and they adore her.

Spiders & butterflies & worms, oh my!!

I'm not very fond of bugs. But as a mother of three of them, I've learned that boys are. A lot actually. So they were more than excited to get to the bug exhibits. Sawyer, who is usually a bit squeamish around insects himself, didn't have a problem getting right up close with all of the different creatures. As long as they were behind glass.


Anybody hungry?

Seriously, what would you do if you went to a friends house for dinner, and this was what they put in front of you?

Spiders, worms, beetles; none of that is my cup of tea. But butterflies....well, butterflies are a completely different thing. I will gladly walk through displays filled with cochroaches, bees, and larvae if it means I get to spend a little while in a room filled with butterflies.


Everytime we visit a butterfly house, Logan makes it his mission to have a butterfly land on him. He gets so frustrated if it doesn't happen for him. This was one of those days where his efforts were futile. He was kinda bummed.

Sawyer and Grandma Shellie didn't catch a butterfly either, but they were happy just the same.

Pac-Sci Standards

We only had a little over an hour or so to get through the museum. So we tried to breeze through the areas that we've seen over and over again pretty quickly. But we did stop at a few of the must-see spots. Chris was blown over with nostalgia when he spotted this balance thing. He couldn't help but jump on. I've always been too chicken to try it. Even when I was a kid I wouldn't do it.

I'm not a fan of the naked mole rats. They creep me out. But they are a staple of the Pacific Science Center. Sawyer LOVED them. He could have sat there all day watching those nasty little things. When we tried to coax him away by asking him if he wanted to go and touch the starfish and replied "No. I touch these."


Logan was at the tidepool before any of the rest of us. He loves touching the urchins and having their spines close around his finger.

Sawyer refused to touch anything. I wish I knew what bothered him so much about it. The girl even offered him just a plain shell to touch, but he refused.

One of the snakes they have is named Estrella, which means star in spanish, and happens to be my sister's nickname for me. It was a perfect photo-op.

While I was compiling my pictures for these posts, I noticed that Brandon doesn't seem to be in many of them. He's becoming very independant lately and likes to just have his personal space sometimes. Whether that be taking a bike ride around the neighborhood without his brother tagging along, or walking through exhibits at his own speed and preference, I've been trying to give him that. Being an oldest child myself, I understand the feeling of wanting to just step away for a few minutes and be alone. He is such a help around here, and he deserves those moments. With that being said, here he is checking out the Puget Sound tides and waterways exhibit.

After our quick visit through the main part of the museum, we moved onto my least and at the same time most favorite area: the bugs.

Pacific Science Center: Part 1

Our final stop on our day of fun with Grandma Shellie was at the Pacific Science Center. This started out as one very photo heavy post, so I decided to break it into a few smaller posts to lighten the load, so to speak.

So we'll start with the traveling exhibit. We've seen some pretty cool things in this area of the museum in the past. Last year we saw a circus exhibit that was pretty neat. But this one had to be the most interactive we've seen. I believe it was called The Science of Fear or something along those lines. There were booths set up where you could test your reactions to different situations. All of them being common fears.

The first we came to addressed the fear of falling. You got strapped into a machine that was rigged to slowly lower you backwards and then suddenly drop without warning. A camera  positioned in front of your face reads your reaction and gives you a fear "score".

Logan got to give it a try first.

When he fell he lifted his head up to brace himself. I guess that was a no-no in the "controling your fear" aspect of the experiment.

Next up was Brandon.

He did better at relaxing and not reacting.

One of the next booths we came to had a machine to test your fear of pain.....I think. There were little contraptions you would stick your finger into that was connected to an electric device that would zap you with a little jolt of electricity (by the way, don't you just love my technical terms for all of this stuff). You would know when the shock was coming, because you can see the current traveling to the receptor. The boys were all for it, even Sawyer, though I don't think his little finger touched the inside of the finger thing in the right way. It didn't seem to effect him at all.


Personally, I couldn't do it. I put my finger in there, and waited for the bright blue current to travel up, but I couldn't stand it. I had to pull my finger out. I'm a weinie. Grandma Shellie passed on this booth as well. She decided to just hang out, watch the boys, and look adorable.

I of course passed on the fear of animals booth. All you did was reach your hand into blacked out boxes and feel fake critters. But above those boxes, they had real critters, and I was not about to stick my face up close to those terrariums. The boys of course were all for it.

Past the human fears booths, there was an area that talked about how animals react to fear. How they use fear as a survival instinct. There was an "Avoid the Cheetah" type game set up. It used Kinect type technology, meaning you use your whole body to interact with the game as if you were really in that situation. You have to catch falling fruit from a tree, but freeze in place when they cheetah turns your way. If you don't freeze quick enough and the cheetah spots you, he attacks. All of the boys got a kick out of playing. Even Daddy.

The rest of the time in the exhibition we learned about how our bodies react to fear. How the brain reads different scenarious and sends your body into a massive surge of activity.  About the chemical reactions that take place in your body and how they cause different physical reactions. For instance: peeing yourself.

The exhibit as a whole was really interesting and it was fun to watch the kids interact with all of it.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

EMP and the Sci-Fi Museum

After our Ride The Ducks tour was over we headed to the Seattle Center house to eat some lunch and plan the next move in our day of fun. We decided to take the boys over to the Experience Music Project & Sci-Fi Museum. I didn't have the chance to take too many pictures in there. I get nervous since last time I was there with a friend we were confronted by a security guard for trying to take pictures. So I only got a few while we were in there.

The boys weren't all that interested in the music part of the museum, but they did have fun playing the instruments in the jam room. We waited around for about 15 minutes waiting for one of the rooms to open so we made sure to use the entire length of our turn. The boys each got to try all of the instruments and even Chris got in on the fun.







After we made a quick trip through the music exhibits we took a walk through the Battlestar Galactica Exhibit. The boys breezed through there since they don't know anything about the show. They were more excited to get downstairs to the Avatar exhibit. They had a lot of movie props and interactive stuff to see. It was pretty neat to see the technical parts of exhibit and learn how they made the movie. Please excuse the poor quality photos taken with my phone. Again, my paranoia wouldn't allow me to whip out my big camera.




The boys enjoyed the Avatar exhibit the best out of our visit. I'm glad they got to see it before it moves on to another city. I was thinking that it might be fun to take them to each of the new exhibits that come to the musuem, but the current one is all about horror films. I think we're going to skip that one.