Two little kids....

and a whole lot of science!  Last Saturday, we took the afternoon off for a little family trip.  We chose to go to the Science Center in Des Moines.  Unfortunately, they had almost half of the science experiment displays/activities taken down for a special Van Gogh exhibit, so that was a huge bummer.  But the kids had a really fun time with the experiments that were left to try.  I got a little caught up in the moments myself, so the pictures are pretty sparse, but good enough to remember the day!

The HUGE pendulum that is in the entrance to the Science Center.  As it swings, it moves in a circular pattern taking the whole day to make the full 360 degrees. 

The nature center's theme was reptiles and amphibians.  Caleb's experience with snakes (which were the most prevalent display) is pretty limited to the story of The Garden of Eden, so it was interesting to mesh science and scripture in this room.  Its almost impossible to make out, but if you look REAL close you can see the snake climbing up the side of the tank.

My First Alert Storm Team.  Jeriann and Ed have nothin' on them!

The tornado - at the push of a button, we were able to watch how a tornado forms.  I would much rather see it up close like this than in my backyard!

I hadn't realized that my kids had never really played with dominoes until we had to explain how they worked when we had our turn at the giant dominoe table.   I deprive my kids so much!

The Giant Ball Wall was a huge hit, especially with Sarah.  But I think she was more interested in chasing after the loose balls and playing with the big kids there than she was in learning about pulleys and air pressure.  Go figure!

Building a freestanding arch out of 21 blocks.  In the picture, Josh is steadying the arch because I didn't want it to fall down without at least one picture.  But after I snapped the shot, he let go and it sure enough stood on its own!  I took that picture, and the proceeded to delete it...oops!

Father and Son building a paper rocket.  (Rather, Father building a paper rocket FOR Son who is preoccupied making sure Daughter does not have more crayons or tape than Son has.) 

Son shooing said rocket.  It actually did pretty good and went the entire length of the netted area.  Good job, Father!

I'm sure someone knows the technical name of the electric ball... but it ain't me.  The kids liked it though whether or not I could explain the specifics (and once they got over their terror of getting shocked).

Well, its not Indianola, but Caleb enjoyed racing these three hot air balloons! 

THE ABSOLUTE highlight for me was watching Sarah at the pin wall.  It was about a 4x6 (total guess there!) frame filled with plastic pegs that left the imprint of whatever was pushed against it.  Sarah had a blast playing with the peg wall, but what was so memorable was that she was playing with four older boys somewhere between 10 and 12 years old, I'd say.  This picture just shows how much fun she was having.

Trying to push the pegs with her feet.  She didn't get very far, but she got a good laughter workout!



Caleb was being such a good big brother, trying to explain to Sarah that if she would just pedal with her feet the crane would spin around.  But Sarah had no use for pedaling and Caleb had no use for sitting still.  So....



....when all reasoning with the little sister fails, take matters into your own hands!  I bet this was the fastest that crane had gone in quite a while and certainly the most RPMs Sarah had had all day!