Right as you walk in there is an aquarium with sting rays and little sharks in it. Talk about an attention grabber for my kids.
Ginger loved these turtles. They were different kinds, but she totally classified them into the Mommy Turtle, the Daddy Turtle, the Baby Turtle, etc.
Ginger spent a good 20 minutes watching these turtles as the rest of my kids...
Found a video game to play, Of Course! This museum had alot of hands on displays. And they were actually intelligent ones, not a token gesture of making a children's display. It was awesome! This game was having them collect different types of bugs just as scientists do. Then grouping them into classifications.
Rose liked the turtles too, at least the ones you can sit on.
Darin and Nathan were obsessed with watching this pendulum swing. It swings following the rotation of the earth. There are little metal pegs standing up all around so every couple of inches the pendulum moves it knocks over a peg. We stayed here until they could see two of them fall down.
Then we headed downstairs to the aquariums. Oh my goodness, they loved those. Especially the jelly fish since the light overhead would change colors every 20 seconds making the jelly fish change colors.
There were small aquariums and also a couple of really big ones with 6-10 feet fish in them. The little ones had really interesting species. The weirdest one we saw was a little catfish that was about 2" long but it would swim upside down.
Ginger fell in love with this snake lady. She wouldn't leave her or the snake for like 15 minutes. Which is a long time considering Ginger usually only stays at an area for a minute. Finally everyone else came over to see what the big deal was. Also, at this point all of the school field trips left so we had the museum pretty much to ourselves.
This is probably a little weird to take a picture of a museum bathroom. But after traveling alot with my kids I was seriously in love with their bathrooms because they had a built in step stool for children to wash their hands. That is a big deal, I am always having to halfway hold them/prop them on my leg while I try to keep my balance on one leg just so they can wash their hands. And my girls are pretty hefty it's not like I'm lifting a 20 lb child. Rose is 58 lbs. and Ginger is 40 lbs. Seriously, it was so nice!
We took a break and grabbed our picnic lunch from the car. When I parked it only took me 8 times of backing up and pulling forward to fit into the space. Darin has to keep hopping out of the car and directing me because I am so afraid of hitting someone. It's just the spaces are so dang close and clearly not made for a Suburban. Well, this time I ended up all of 3 inches away from a concrete pole!
Thankfully when we picked up our lunch the car in front of me had left so I was able to pull forward into their spot and center the car.
We took the elevator up. Nathan wanted to race us, and of course he beat us! When we reached to the top he was yawning at us!
We ate lunch on their outside patio. Seriously they thought of everything. It's the perfect place for field trips to eat lunch, and it is completely fences off with room for kids to run around.
Since we had the place to ourselves the kids had fun playing hide and seek.
After lunch we were able to go to the planetarium! When we first arrived they told us to get tickets to the show ASAP. Then of course we found out that Ginger wasn't old enough to go in. I saw one lady really argue (nicely, but still arguing) to try to get her son in. Honestly, he looked 4 years old which was the age limit. But they were so strict. I really had an internal struggle debating if I should just go up and get the tickets while the kids were busy and smuggle Ginger in. I've taken her into Planetariums before and I know she would be so good. But I knew that wouldn't be honest. Plus, all of the kids clearly knew you had to be four. Finally, I asked the boys if they wanted to just go by themselves. Nathan said yes, Darin was unsure but we went up to get them tickets.
Ginger was right in front of me and the man handing out tickets asked her if she was four. She is a smart girl, and knew she had to be four to go so she said, "Yes!" Nice huh! We all corrected her and she ended up showing the man that she was only three fingers old. It was totally cute! I explained that I was just trying to get tickets for my older boys to go since Ginger wasn't old enough. And guess what, that man told us to sit in the top two rows in case Ginger wanted to leave in the middle and he gave us all tickets!
What a lesson we learned that day in being honest, I think that hour while we waited for the show to begin was the most fun and lighthearted we were all day. We spent it laughing, talking, re-enacting, that whole episode with the ticket man. Darin and Nathan just couldn't believe that out of all the people who had tried to get tickets for their 3 year olds that we were the only ones that they gave them to.
And we did have fun watching the show. Ginger was very good! Rose especially LOVED it! It was good I was there because the beginning was a little scary for my boys just because it was so dark, and steep inside the planetarium.
We went to the top to look at their growing rooftop. We didn't stay long thought because it was quite cold and rainy.
Inside we went to the Safari wing. They had all sorts of stuffed giraffes and lions in display. Every once in awhile there would be a display with a live animal in it. Rose found an extremely friendly lizard.
He would come up to her hand and lick the glass or put his hands on it too.
Ginger liked him too. He seemed to like the little children better then the boys and other teenagers who came up. He really only came to the little children.
And we finally saw the Penguins! Ever since we decided to come to this museum all Ginger has talked about was, "When do I get to see the Penguins?"
I don't think she was actually all that impressed when she did see them. The boys were though! Nathan totally figured out how they were tagged different colors with their mates.
The Academy also has an Albino Alligator. If an alligator creeps you out and Albino one does for sure! It was so creepy!
The Alligator snapped his jaws once. Oh my goodness it was so loud. It totally scared Rose enough to make her cry. It sounded like a huge firework blowing up. Surprisingly there were big tortoise's in with the alligator. One of them went to check out the Alligator and the alligator actually ran from the turtle. He was a fun guy to watch for awhile.
We headed back downstairs to the Tide Pool touching area.
Only Nathan and Rose were brave enough to touch the starfish, shells, and other stuff. Darin didn't even want to try (no big surprise there) and Ginger tried to get up the courage 4 or 5 times but chickened out.
There was a tunnel aquarium on Amazon fishes that the kids loved. At this aquarium instead of having plaques showing what kind of fish they were they had plastic laminated sheets with the pictures and names of the fishes. All the kids had fun sitting and trying to figure out which fish was which.
Here is another example of some of the fun hands-on things they had. At this display there were pucks with a preserved specimen of the animal. When you moved the puck into different circles the screen would tell you different facts about it's biology, habitat, etc. They had a few different specimens and four different aspects for each animal. I just loved this museum!
This fun display simultated what it would feel like if you touched an electric eel. The boys were totally scared to touch it after they saw another little boy touch it. I told them I would pay them a dollar if they did. Nathan was the only one who was brave enough to take my offer.
Nathan actually ended up touching it 12 times! By the end he was trying to see how long he could keep his fingers on it. Clearly he was losing brain cells each time, that crazy boy:-)
Ginger didn't think twice about touching it. She saw Nathan do it so she went up to do it. Before I could grab her to stop her she had done it. She jerked away and started to cry, then I asked her if it hurt, she laughed and said "No!"
Rose was a brave girl and touched it a number of times too. The first time she was really not happy, but after a couple of times she thought it was funny! I don't know what that says about my children or not. Silly kids. It was pretty strong. Once when I was painting I touched some wires wrong at a socket and got a good shock and that is exactly what this felt like. It wasn't anything to scoff at but they were happy to do it over and over again.
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