Vacation Part 3!

Be forewarned that this post has a LOT of pictures!

We went to the Museum of Discovery and Science in FL. It was amazing!

Like the last couple of entries I was unprepared. Luckily I found the descriptions of most of the exhibits on their website. Unlike the last couple of entries, I DO have pictures AND descriptions of the exhibits! 

First we checked out the Ecoscapes which included lots of living plants, animals like bats, turtles, and rabbits, and habitats.

 

Jayden even pet a snake!

 

 

 There was an exhibit showing taxidermy animals.

 Tio JC went over the water cycle with Jayden.

We saw inquisitive and playful otters that swam up to the window and put on a show for us with their little tricks. 

 

 

We checked out the Prehistoric section. The kids stepped on a scale which let them know how many of them had to be eaten on a daily basis to fill up different prehistoric animals.

 We saw a HUGE Imperial Mammoth and a saber toothed cat.  

The kids hid inside of a 50 ft Megalodon (an extinct species of shark that lived millions of years ago).

 

Check out those teeth!

Of course Cait had to dig in his nose!

 

 We went through the storm center and created clouds and checked out a 10 foot tornado.

 We stopped and checked out a plasma ball that represented lightening. 

 There was a little indoor playground where the kids climbed the Hardwood Hammock.

 

 

 Cait made bubbles.

 

 And Jayden climbed the Wacky Walls.

We checked out the Powerful You exhibit which was Jayden's favorite part.  We used tools in the Cutting Edge exhibit that showed us how hospitals utilize technology to benefit patients. This included robotic surgery, cyberknife, and a CT scanner. We also saw models used to replace injured or non-functioning parts of the body, including a replacement hip and knee! 

The Powerful Pulse exhibit showed the parts of the heart and how it functions. This machine was amazing! We didn't even get to check out all of its functions but we did manage to see the anatomy of the heart, blood vessels, skeletal structure, and the muscles in the body.

Jayden has been learning about the effect of alcohol on the mind and body. He got to try out a DUI simulator and realized that alcohol leaves you unable to control yourself the way you want to.

Next we went to the Aviation Station to sit in the cockpit of several different aircrafts. 

We also tried a really loud machine that demonstrated the amount of force necessary to escape Earth's gravity.

After we left we went for a walk. I can't remember where this place is, but it was a nice little strip.

 

 

This museum was probably our favorite trip while there and we will DEFINITELY have to repeat it!

To be continued...

Vacation Part 2!

The day after we arrived we were all pretty pooped but we didn't want to waste any time. So we headed off to the park.

 Cait did her best on the monkey bars but did not have enough strength to make it through.

Right on her butt!

Jayden claimed he could not do the monkey bars but after he was bribed with money *cough cough titi Nay!*, he suddenly was able to make it across.

Once we were done we took a nature walk behind the park. There were lots of trees planted from all over the world. I had fabulous intentions of labeling the trees from their respective places on my pictures. Somehow they never went beyond intentions though.

We found an upside picture which we thought was interesting.

 And finally there was a memorial set up for all of our war heroes. We salute you!

To be continued...

Vacation Part 1!

*I am breaking up our vacation into several blog posts due to the massive amount of pictures I have.

We went on our first vacation as a family of four during spring break. It was so much fun!!

I had this grand plan to incorporate geography into our trip. A little bit of history too. We were going to stop at half the states on our route to collect postcards one way and we would stop at the other half to collect them on the way back. We would take pictures, put a stamp on little passports that I intended to create, and I would read to them a little about each state that we passed. Sweet right?

Well that went to hell in a handbasket when we all caught a stomach virus before I could put together anything past my plan! It was a rough few days in our house. Four human beings. With a stomach virus. In one bathroom.

Cait was struck with it first. She went to bed perfectly fine. Suddenly Juan and I heard the unmistakable sound of vomit. This was only a few days before we were supposed to leave. We hoped it was food poisoning, cleaned up the mess (well Juan took care of the mess while I cleaned up Caitlin), and she fell asleep. Fine, a little hiccup, but nothing that would cancel our vacation starting Wednesday.

20 minutes later she puked again. 20 minutes after that, again. She continued puking every 20 minutes for 4 hours. Well, crap.

 

We brought her to the ER and learned that she had a stomach virus. The nurse said she had been seeing a lot of it lately.

"Is it contagious?" I asked, knowing damn well it was, but hoping, praying, begging, that she would say otherwise.

She just looked at me and lied straight through her teeth. "We'll see." I knew I was in trouble when she smiled.

Damn.

She sent us off with anti nausea meds and wished us the best.

When Jayden, Juan, and I started feeling off the next day I knew what to expect. I will skip the horrid details because this isn't that kind of blog. Luckily we were on the mend within 36hours. 12 hours later we were packed and ready to go!

It started off like this:

 

 We drove until they looked like this:

We stopped to rest and suddenly they were wide awake, excited to be spending the night in a hotel.

The next morning we left before the sun rose. Jayden was too excited to rest in the car but Cait napped a few times.

 

And finally we arrived in the sunshine state!

To be continued...

The past couple of weeks of Caitlin's Little Learners class went like this:

 She graduated from her Little Learners class!

 

Jayden has been building lego sets. He loves all things lego and does an awesome job following directions to put together and take apart his sets.