Science Museum of Virginia

Mid July, I had the chance to go to Napa Valley with Alaina and the kids had a chance to spend a week at Grandma Camp. You should be anxiously awaiting a guest blog on that trip to Napa, but before we get there, the kids and I made a quick pit stop at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond. Mom and Dad were able to meet me after an appointment in Richmond, so it was an ideal time to get in a few hours before we could meet up.
A while back, Mom and I took the kids and it was a fun place. Part of it was closed for some renovations, but we had a good time none the less. This time it was fully open and really a ton of fun. The two areas we didn't get to do before were an area about "Speed" and an area called "Boost". Boost is hard to describe, but basically you get a little scan tag when you enter and you can scan in at all sorts of activities and have your performance measured (how high can you jump, how good you are at memory games, how fast your reflexes are). At the end, you could scan in and see your results and compare to others that also scanned in. I thought it was a pretty awesome area and would have personally spent a lot of time there even without kids.
In the Speed area, they had one of those wind blowing machines to approximate what hurricane force winds would feel like. It was popular.

In another area, there was a really fun light wall. I have often dragged my camera many places and tried so hard for photos I love, and the light wall made my day. It occurred to me to take pictures so that you could clearly see the light wall and then have the kids step away from it and get the light wall to become a crazy blurry light background. I was really proud of the thought and happy with the pictures. It is the first time I have ever utilized something unplanned or unknown for an effect.

More in the speed area... a little race.

The pendulum- always a fan favorite! I really (REALLY) want to take Stephanie to the DC museums, but Gwen is too little to really enjoy it (and old enough to make it hard for the rest of us to enjoy it). It didn't happen this summer, but we will work it out soon.

On the way out, you can deposit your admissions sticker on the post. She deposited mine, and kept her own. They were pretty cool stickers, so I wasn't surprised.

Bowling

Once again, I find myself behind on the blog. These photos are from our bowling trip, probably about a month ago. The kids had never been bowling and it was a worthwhile way to spend the morning. We went with our neighbors, of course. We played two games, and only had to have the ball retrieved about 6 times after one of the little kids rolled it so slow that it stopped moving prior to reaching the pins. Blake eventually noticed the ball ramp to help speed the little kids balls along, and that rapidly picked up game pace.

It's a heavy ball. No wonder she couldn't always push it hard enough to make it to the pins!

There was much rejoicing for, well, for pretty much anything. They are so sweet to each other!

There is that ramp! Made all the difference!

Some after bowling pictures. Kevin was impressed that I scored as high as I did- then I reminded him about the bumpers.  Which is why you should ALWAYS bowl with kids!!!