St. Louis Science Center

We ventured to the St. Louis Science Center last week for a whirlwind day of activity and fun. I didn't realize that it would take 6 hours to make our way through the center - and that is without seeing an I-Max film! While many of the exhibits were over their head, we were able to talk with the kids (well, mainly Olivia) about the concepts within their age range.

Here are Olivia and Ethan posing with the polar bear while Joe purchased our tickets.


The main attraction at the center right now is the T-Rex "Sue", the most complete dinosaur skeleton ever found. It will be there until April 12 for anyone interested.

Ethan was a bit scared by this exhibit - the head rotated and roared.

Olivia was fascinated by all of the exhibits at the center and took a long turn at this one - looking at objects from a T-Rex point of view.

Ethan digging for dinosaur bones.

Now Olivia's turn to dig.

This room was set up to "recover" fossils. Using brushes and scrapers Olivia was able to extract a fossil from plaster. The dust was a bit too much for me to handle!

Ethan's turn with the fossils!

Olivia and Ethan in the "hamster wheel" after lunch.

Both kids loved this exhibit - moving and roaring dinosaurs. Explaining to Olivia why the triceratops was hurt was a bit interesting. I don't think that she realizes that dinosaurs were not exactly nice creatures.

Of course there was a Build a Dinosaur shop right next to Sue. Luckily, Olivia was happy to just pose with the poster.

We spent some time in the Discovery Room for little kids. They loved that there was broccoli floating in the water for the fish to eat.

Olivia is our budding physician at the moment. She loves books on the human body and can name all of the major organs, their function, and where they are located in the body. She also loves to look at skeletons and ask about how a body heals. Such an inquisitive girl!

Ethan loves drums (as opposed to guitars, which he will tell you) and was thrilled to find many drums in the Discovery Room.

Olivia teaching Joe a thing or two about x-rays.

In the Structures exhibit a group of people gathered to recreate the Arch. Olivia loved being a part of this! The Arch was successfully completed, but the kids were quick to then knock it down again before I could take a picture.

Ethan working to make his own Arch.

Spending time in the Planetarium.

Comparing heights with the space shuttles.

Ethan exploring the world.

Walking on the balance beam in the optical illusion exhibit.

I can never remember the name of this illusion, but both kids had a great time playing in the room. Mainly sliding down the floor and watching themselves on the camera installed in the room.

Now some random pictures taken recently. Lately poor Olivia has been a "participant" in wrestling matches with Ethan. He tries hard to have her wrestle with him in the floor, but she usually does not have much interest in this.

Ethan loves to try on "big people" shoes. Oh, yeah, and he loves to be naked (or "neigh neigh" as he calls it).

Perfect picture taken by a certain Star Wars fan in the family. Ethan's shirt says "Who's your Daddy?"

And, I'll end on a word about what happened to our van. We were traveling home on Sunday, March 8 when a tornado suddenly struck Springfield. We were caught in the straight line winds that almost blew us off of the street. While that did not happen, this did: A straight line wind broke our window, the one that Ethan sits next to. He was in the car at the time and he was unharmed (although terrified!) thank goodness. We were about a mile from home and I didn't want to stop the car in the middle of the storm, so we drove home with a completely shattered window that would drop chunks of glass every time I hit a bump or made a turn. By the time we made it home there were 3 large holes in the window. Luckily, that was the only damage done and was repaired the very next day. And for those of you who used to live in Springfield, our old apartment building, Olde Towne, lost the roof off of several buildings in this tornado.