Going to Hiller Aviation Museum- This museum rocks, and probably isn't even on the radar of most people visiting the Bay Area. It is by far my favorite museum I've ever taken the kids too, although the San Jose Tech is fairly close.
My top Reasons for loving this museum:
1. It is was quiet and hardly anyone was there. Which was fabulous because we didn't feel like we had to rush through to the next display.
2. It was educational, and not in a dumbed down way for kids. It was just enough information and they had TV displays if you would like to see a video presentation of details for say, kids who can't or don't feel like reading. By the way Hiller Aviation Museum is all about airplanes and man's quest to fly, helicopters, personal flying suacers etc.
3. There is a huge hanger that probably has about 50-60 airplanes or model planes(life size or about as big as a motorcycle) and helicopters. Hiller invented helicopters. Actually his history was quite fascinating. He won a contract from the Army or Air Force (I know alot of guys will tell me there is a big difference, but I can only hold so much info in my head) after setting up a company in his Dad's garage when he was just a teenager. I guess the Bay Area has had more then one type of "garage start-up" innovators, since if I remember correctly this was during the 1940's. Apparently the Army showed up and was surprised that other then a bunch of teenagers there was only 1 man who wasn't a minor and he was a machinist. Funny huh! They still got to do the job though. I think it must have been a different USA during that time.
4. The museum wasn't filled with kiddie commercialized displays, I really hate it when museums try to make things kid friendly and it ends up seeming too toy-ish. However it was completely captivating and they had video games where you sit in a helicopter and take off and land by using the real levers. They had about 5 different interactive video games like this. One was flying saucer that was hard for the kids to do by themselves. The boys loved landing a jet, this one had hydrolics and moved the nose of the plan they were sitting in.
5. Rose loved it! Keeping an almost 2 year-old's interest for 4 hours is nearly impossible, so the fact that she loved it, and the boys loved it, and I loved it (their was a video graphic that was quite entertaining/hilarious the guide would morph into being Yoda, or spider-man and would explain all the mechanics of a part of an airport in that frame of mind); is pretty amazing. We actually only left because we were about 2 hours past lunch time and were STARVING.
6. Other things the kids loved was exploring the cockpit of a 747, hearing the air traffic controllers talk, and the gift shop. Darin bought 2 teeny tiny puzzle model airplanes that came in a couple hundred pieces that he loved putting together, sorry one is a helicopter (he's told me the name over and over again but again I think that goes back to me not having that Y chromosome, my mind only holds so much when it comes to those details). And Nathan bought a circle air-flyer thing. Seriously those boys thought they were so spoiled by Ken. He gave them each $20 for souvenirs for the whole trip. That's a big deal to them since we don't believe in allowance (seriously what would they buy, they have a pretty awesome life). And since they normally have to do chores everyday and then do Work Saturdays with Ken (that's mainly yard work, or major house projects), they usually don't get much of an opportunity to earn all that much money. That being said, they always have quite a bit of money because of gifts they receive but they mainly save that too, but those little boys always keep around $60-80 in their wallet that they can spend at their own discretion, they are just super picky about spending it. Like they will ask us to buy them toys and I will say something like, "You can buy it with your money if you want." But then their reply will be, "But those always break after 2 months." Anyway, I guess my point is that the boys were pretty happy and excited that their Dad gave them money just to spend on souvenirs, it was a big treat. And since they were super careful and didn't spend that much of it on any of our other outings they ended up buying alot at Hiller. Darin spent more then Nathan, but again that was because Darin was willing to dip into his own wallet since he had $80 but Nathan didn't even want to use $4 of his personal money to get a toy he liked because he only had $45 in his wallet. He told me later how Darin's birthday had hit him pretty hard the previous month, it was cute.
Here's pictures of us at the museum. As you will see Rose loved to play the games with her brother's. They are soooooo good to her. It wasn't much of a problem except for on the flying saucer.
Darin and Nathan under a full size replica of the Kitty Hawk.
1 comment:
so cute your boys are so funny and cute I love how they play with rose
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