Today was my love's 1st official furlough day. And I must say, we enjoyed it to it's absolute fullest and spent next to nothing doing so. It was great!
We went to Tacoma. Unarguably one of the highlights for my girls is getting to ride the "train." (Tacoma Link Light Rail - free by the way.) Children are experts at finding joy in life's simple things.
Were we doing anything particular in Tacoma you may ask? Yes. I saw advertised a long time ago that an Eric Carle exibit was coming to Tacoma. I said then that I would really enjoy going to that. But our summer started off in a bit of a busy rush and it didn't make it onto my priorities list.
Just last week I saw the ad again on something we had recorded off tv. I thought surely the exhibit is gone by now but I checked just in case. Indeed it was supposed to be gone, but the exhibit had been extended! Crazy lucky for me.
But even luckier than that, we were coming up on a Third Thursday. Which is THE day to go to Tacoma. Every third Thursday afternoon/evening, all their museums are free. (They have quite a few of them. All within walking distance even.)
I was a little hesitant to go on "Free Day" for worry that it would be super crowded. But really, it's wasn't too bad in my opinion. We left early in the afternoon to avoid any commuters traffic. Let the kiddos play at that Children's Museum of Tacoma (which is a pay-what-you-can-afford establishment), ate an early picnic dinner, and got to the Museum just before 5:00, beating the crowds. (I was kind of proud of how smoothly our itinerary was executed.)
So, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the exhibit. But it was SO not worth the $25 it would have cost us to get our family of 5 in the door. I found several items very interesting, but my kiddos managed to get us though the actual art displays in less than 30 min. Unarguably the best part was the access to the art studio upstairs.
Eric Carle works with tissue paper, so they had tissue paper project supplies.
Eric Carle paints paper, then cuts it into shapes, and makes animals out of them. So they had this really neat magnet board thing. Huge magnets in various crazy shapes, that looked like his painting. The kids could then put the pieces together to make things just like Eric Carle. Such a good idea! This is K. Rae's "tornado over the country side." Way cool huh?
This is E. Mae's house with a boat floating on a lake.
When we planned this trip, we had only planned on the 2 museums, but we had so much extra time left that we walked down the street to the Washington State History Museum. On our way, K. Rae asked to take a picture with this gentleman.
K. Rae is thinking of starting a "collection" of pictures of her with statues. That would me kind of cool don't you think?
What better way to finish of a fun family day then with chocolate pudding?
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