IMAGINE Children's Museum

Field trip day!

The girls went on what I think was their most awesome field trip yet.  We went to IMAGINE Children's Museum in Everett.  It was quite a bit of a jaunt for us.  Takes almost 2 hours to get there.  Part of that commute time is a ferry ride.  Which is all sorts of entertaining for the kid but MAN!  I hate the stress that comes along with it!  We were the 2nd to last car on the ferry!  Barely made it.  Blah!  Stresses me out!

Because our visit was part of a field trip through the girls Virtual Acadamy, we started out with a class on barn owls.  Part of this class included dissecting owl pellets.   I was totally impressed with the girls.  They dove right in.  When I was their age, you wouldn't have gotten me to touch that with a ten foot pole!

After the class, families were free to spend the rest of the day exploring the museum.  I tell you what, this place was so amazing, my kids could have happily played here ALL day.

This first room actually ended up being their favorite.  They loved being a doctor for animals. 

 

Flying an airplane.

Water area.

My love and I decided that someday, our dream home will have one of these!  There was even a kid friendly sound and light booth to play with.  You could push buttons to make sound effects to go along with what the "actors" were doing on stage. 

I know a lot of little boys that would have been in heaven in this area.

 

It was kind of like giant hands on legos.  There were how-to instruction sheets for building all sorts of different things. 

Finding dinosaur bones.

Indoor "camping."

What kid doesn't love to play restaurant?

Unfortunately I didn't really get a picture of it, so I found a picture on the internet.  But on the roof of this place, there was the largest playground structure I have ever seen. 

There was just SO MUCH TO DO at this place.  As much as I hate ferries, it was worth it.  I think we'll definitely make this something we do at least once a year.  In fact, I want all my siblings and their kids to come visit so all the cousins can hang out and play in this amazing place.  

THINGS TO NOTE:

PRICE - around $10 a person.  (We got in for $6 cause we were part of a field trip.)  I think $10 is a totally reasonable price for the facilities.  But not gonna lie, big family - it can add up quick.  But if you get a crowd together and reserve a "party" you can get 25 people in for $100.  Which is only $4 a person!  Plus you get a private room for your "party" to have lunch.  (That's a WEEKDAY party price - weekEND party price is double that.)  Like I said, I'm thinking family reunion.  

PARKING - $8 to park in their parking lot.  After paying $25 to park when we went to the Pacific Science Center, $8 seemed like a steal to us.  Trouble is, our group didn't get there 'till around mid-day.  By then the lot was full.  Our only other option was street parking.  Which at first seemed full too.  But if you're interested, here is what I recomend:

About 1 block away is the post office.  Lots of free street parking there.  Directly in front of the post office it's 90 min parking.  But if you turn the corner just past the post office, there is 2 hour parking.  So every two hours, one of us would go move the car.  Not too bad really.  Got to stretch our legs and get a little fresh air. 

General Conference OCT '14

My girls were excited for General Conference weekend.  At least a portion of the reasoning behind that would be that we do key word treats.  (Conference Snacking Fun) By the time we're done we are all sick of "treats," but man, I can't deny that my kids pay attention to conference because of it.  Even my 3 year old!  She was totally paying attention!  Every time she heard the word "God" she would make sure we all heard it too and wanted to know what treat she got to eat.  "God" wasn't one of our original key words this year, but when I saw her effort and enthusiasm we switched out the mini-M&Ms that went with the word "priesthood," and changed that treat box to the word "God."  She eventually picked up on other words that also meant she got a treat.

There were 2 quotes this year that made me quickly scramble for a piece of paper and the closest writing utensil.  I have since gone back and gotten the exact wording right.

The first quote was from Elder Tad R. Callister's talk from the Saturday afternoon session.  He said:

 Which parent in Book of Mormon times would have let their sons march out to the front of battle, without a breastplate and shield and sword, to protect them against the potential mortal blows of the enemy? But how many of us let our children march out the front door each morning, to the most dangerous of all battlefields, to face satan and his myriad of temptations, without their spiritual breastplate and shield and sword that come from the protective power of prayer. 

 The second quote I liked came from Elder Carlos A. Godoy's talk in the Sunday afternoon session.  He talked about what we are supposed to do when life is going pretty good.  This really resonated with me because I often feel that my life is so blessed, and down right easy, compared to so many around me that are struggling and laden with heavy trials.  He said:

We are not here in this life just to waste our time, grow old and die. God wants us to grow and achieve our potential.

I haven't yet figured out what specificly I should be doing, but it's given me something to ponder on. 

Back In Action

In the dinner of life, I keep a full plate.  Always lots to do.  More often than not, I have to keep a pretty fast pace to accomplish all I want to in one day.  There are many days where I feel like I'm riding at 80mph.  Even though my surgery was small, it forced me to sloooow down.  It was almost a surreal feeling at times.  Just sitting there.  Doing nothing!

Over the past couple of weeks life has worked it's way back up to full speed.  I'm grateful for my health and that I am able to resume enjoying things that bring me joy. 

5 weeks post-op:
Ice Skating

A local ice rink had a free event. First you got to watch the kids on their ice team perform their competition routines. Then everyone in the audience got to the opportunity to give ice skating a try! No charge! It was great. Even though we had no idea what were were doing, we all enjoyed it and had such a nice time. My awesome friend came with us and answered our many questions about ice skating. (She was also our super kind photographer/purse holder/coat holder.)

 

6 weeks post-op:

Mother Daughter Camp Out

When the time for the camp out arrived, i was SO grateful for God's timing.   I was grateful that my unscheduled surgery had happened at such a time that I would be healed up enough to take my girls to the annual mother/daughter camp out.  It is seriously one of the highlights of the year for my girls and I.  They were SO EXCITED to go.  And I dare say it was our funnest year yet.  In years past we've been the lone tenters.  All the other mothers and daughters slept in the cabins and we "roughed" it and pitched a tent.  But THIS year, 2 other families from our ward pitched their tents right next to us!  It was great.  It was so much extra fun to have friends around.  (I should have gotten pictures of them.)

My girls decorated my hot chocolate mug for me.  I LOVE IT.  They drew pictures of all our fun camping memories.  I'll keep it forever! (I took 2 pictures so you could see all sides of their artwork.)

 

Storytime!  We brought our big tent this year.  So there was plenty of room for our friends to join us for bedtime stories.  So fun.

 

 

Yep, we're in a paddle boat.  I was a little nervous about this activity, but I took it nice and slow and had no pain afterwords.  

We had so many road trips this year that we never got around to taking a family camp out.  We all felt bad that Daddy missed out on the camping fun.  So we used our new fire pit for the first time and enjoyed s'mores right from the convenience of our own back yard.

 

7weeks post-op:

Jogged!

8 MILES

I've been walking since my 2 week mark.  But I have still had persistent small pains throughout the day and the thought of jostling my insides with a run just hasn't sounded like a good idea.  But I've been feeling pains much less often lately.  So yesterday I jogged.  :)  It was still pitifully slow, but it felt SO GOOD to be in the running motion again.  And my "runner's high" lasted all day.  Been in such a good mood.