Perot Museum

My little bro Grant, his wife Steph, and my sister Patrice treated our family to admission to the Perot museum today. They have free passes from doing some reading challenge from their library (like reading 10 books?) for which, if they did, they got free passes for a year. Steph was excited that it was such a great deal and something they could share. The museum was really awesome! We rode the escalator up and at the top, on the 4th floor, there was a big T-rex skeleton waiting for us. 

Peter liked that - although until we reached the top, he had to focus on the escalator and his exit strategy.    

The 4th floor was "The Universe, then and now, with a little half level up section on birds. We loved seeing all the planet and solar system space stuff. Peter said "This is getting me excited about space!" There was one bird exhibit where they got to have a computer follow their actions to turn them into a bird in flight. There was a line of kids waiting their turn on the left, and parents and siblings cheering for them on the right. The game was to try to direct the bird through rings, copper was +3, silver was +10, and gold was +20 points. Natalie got 63 which was a high score from the kids that we saw. Daniel flying - 

After all our kids were almost done, that's when Peter said he wanted to do it. So I waited in line with him and everyone waited for us. And we were not disappointed, cause Peter got TWO gold rings! I was laughing, cause all the kids had a really hard time getting the gold rings, and little Peter got two, it was very fun. His score was 43, amazing. 

After the universe, dinosaurs, and birds, we went down to floor 3 for "Earth Energy - Gems and Minerals" which Patrice had said was her favorite place. She and I must have the same genes, cause I loved it too - 

Minerals have such pretty colors. 

Also this thing was so cool - the Lavinsky Ammonite fossil - from Alberta  Canada: 

"The iridescent, nacreous layer (made up of aragonite with varying levels of impurities) of this fossilized shell is called ammonite in the gem trade, and is sometimes used in jewelry. Commercial quantities of gem-quality ammonite are only known to come from a few specific types of ammonite, as a number of things must happen for this to occur. The shell has to be buried quickly, deprived of oxygen, protected from heat and excessive weight, and not be scavenged."

I had totally missed the gems exhibit when we were in NY, I spent too much time getting excited about everything they had on display, and after the clock ran out I was sad to miss the gems, so I was glad to see the cool gems and metal things here (I still need to go back to NY and the DC Mall though...) I was excited. Dragon's Lair gold - wow!

"Initially a large boulder of quartz encasing gold, the Dragon's Lair emerged through the painstaking work of expert technicians at the Collector's Edge in Colorado. Taking place over hundreds of hours, the process involved several cycles of incising, acid etching, and iron removal." I want to find gold. That would be fun. This leftover bold and quart boulder wasn't very large, but it weighs 63 pounds! 

I'm adding mineralogy to the things I want to learn in the next life. Maybe one of my kids will get into it. I nominate Owen! He likes Minecraft, so maybe he could get excited about this, haha. And then it was cool how they tied mineralogy to technology. 2022 was declared "the year of mineralogy" by the International Mineralogical Association - for a worldwide celebration of the history, development and study of mineralogy. the study of minerals has been instrumental in almost every major discovery in history. Many other scientific disciplines trace their roots to mineralogy, including the study of crystallography, geochemistry, material sciences and dozens more." So all that led to the next section. We went down one more level to floor 2: Life - Being Human, Engineering and Innovation. They had all the technological fun stuff - kids played robot games, mostly the remote control robots -

There were two robots in each quadrant. One robot got balls out that were stuck in the corner and could lift them up over the side into someone else's space. The other robot had a little conveyor belt that would grab the balls and put them over the side. Peter's got the conveyor robot below - 

This area was great cause with 2 robots for each section, there was something for all 8 kids in one area, so they played that for a while, and K got sleepy - 

She was able to take a nap there, and we ladies were glad to have a place to sit and visit.

Grant took this pic, he was a good co-documenter with me. Trice mentioned a grip thing over in the human body section, and since I consider myself a tough cookie climber, I went over, passed K to Patrice, and this thing sucked, and I held on to it for 7 seconds. My world was shook, I tried to regroup, tried AGAIN and that time I only got 18 seconds? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME! Patrice held on for over 40 seconds! 

Grant wanted to beat Trice and he got 53 and then later went back and got over a minute. 

Later, when no one was looking (she wanted privacy) Stephanie went and did it, and she had long nails, and she got 35!!! The holds really did suck, but they sucked for Grant Trice and Steph too, and they were able to do it. So, either I've totally lost all my strength from not climbing since Monday, or I'm a sham, or it's like when I broke my leg before my high school senior year and it messed up my soccer season, which I think was a way that God was trying to redirect my focus... I don't know... I think I need to go reconsider my life's purposes. So that little competition was fun for us adults. There were ones for the kids too - Owen, Eli, and Daniel matching the pose. 

K was groggy for a bit, not a long enough nap, but she eventually perked up. She didn't want to be set down, so I'd put her on any hip height surface and she had fun climbing over and messin gup things that people were trying to learn about. Owen and Eli learning about speech and hearing. 

Every little display they had was enough to blow your mind. Like they had one about the tongue that left me almost speechless. Seriously, there are SO MANY THINGS just going on inside of us everyday (inside us AND in the world, like Earth's magnetic field?? Wow. We had just learned about on floor 4 in the universe section) and it's so normal that we don't even think about it or realize how flipping amazing and incredible it all is! They showed an ultrasound video of a person beat boxing, and all the stuff that the lip muscles and tongue are doing in that moment - mind blowing! And then they also had a ultrasound recording of a lady singing and what her tongue and throat were doing to produce that sound, wow! All these things that are crazy specific and synchronized and are going on inside of us as we go about our daily lives. It is incredible. K enjoyed crawling across this long "create a tune" board. 

I wonder what are all the things of movement and balance that are going on when a baby crawls... Sophi and Natalie got it to play Mary had a Little Lamb on this board thing. We all cheered.

So that was all really awesome. I could spend several days there, but we got a good enough fix, and Trice had to get back for her kids coming home from school. Outside for a quick group photo. 

We hung out for a few at Steph's house, boys were rough housing - Taden Edmund and Eli pretending they were girls that were boy crazy for Daniel

Having fun but the party wasn't over yet! Grant and Steph took us to a beach close to their house for pizza dinner - 

...and swimming. 

This is a manmade lake called Joe Pool Lake. 

I knowingly left my swimsuit in Utah. I was fine to be on duty watching K.

The kids all went out on Grant's floating island.

The water was quite cold. K walked in a bit, but wasn't interested in swimming, so soon I took her up to the playground. Still eating pizza.

Patrice came and joined us. I spent most of my time watching kiddos. 

 

After losing terribly in the grip hold contest at the museum, I was pleased that I was able to do a few passes on the monkey bars. Glad I still have a little bit in me. It was a fun day. I didn't visit with any adults this evening as I was mostly watching P&K at the park, but it was good. A very nice day. I was watching the weather and the sky - it was partly cloudy, and if we get partly cloudy for the eclipse, I'm not sure that would let us see much. Atleast not if it's like it was tonight. So we'll see about that. Forecast still shows a full cloud cover day, but we're praying to be able to see it. I don't dare drive anywhere else, I don't want to be stuck in traffic or be stuck if all of a sudden there's a gas shortage. Yeah, we're just hoping and praying for the best.