We had one last play day with The Gang and boy
oh boy did we make the most of it. We started off
by heading over to Kirk's Mom's house to pick up
his cousin Cherlis, who is visiting from Louisiana.
Next we headed over to Explora, a hands on
science museum where the kids can experiment
with electricity, gravity, density, light, sound
vibrations and tons of other cool things. After
we were done with Explora, we headed to Itz for
lunch and games. Itz is similar to Chuck E Cheese's
but much bigger and much cooler.
We had a wonderful day and were so thankful
that we got to spend it with The Gang and Cherlis.

Getting ready for some cool adventures at Explora.
From left to right: Maryssa, Jenna, Cherlis, Tori
and Ian.

Life size link-n-logs. If you look carefully, Ian
is peeking out of the little window.

The lighting on this is bad, sorry. This is the
elevator. It is decorated just like a living room,
complete with overstuffed arm chairs, a couch
and books and paintings on the walls.

I got this picture by accident. Jenna and I were
playing with the kaleidoscope and I took her picture.
I wasn't expecting it to be a million reflections of her
face, just her at the end of the tube. But it turned
out so cool that we made Ian take one too.

The fun house mirrors were too funny!

No one from our group was brave enough
to ride the tightrope bike. They say that
it is counter balanced so there isn't any way
to fall off but we were not willing to take that
chance!

Tori would gently blow on the bubble and it would
change how the colors reflected off of the soap.

If you positioned everything just right, you could
get the air from the pipe to hold up the balloon
in the air. This exhibit got lots of giggles from my kids.

Jenna is controlling how this airplane flies.
Could she be following in Uncle Greg's shoes?

One of the exhibits was a dancing water display.
There were controls at various positions where
you got to control how the water moved. Cool, huh?
This was Ian playing the cello. As he would draw
the bow over the strings, the projector would
display the vibrations that were created.

Maryssa had the magic touch with
the bubble wand. This was just one
of her many huge bubbles.

After Explora, we went to Itz for lunch and games.
Itz is similar to Chuck E Cheese's...but way more
fun! It has a full buffet for lunch and you eat in a
themed roomed. We ate in Toon Town and it had floor
to ceiling movie screens that were airing Boomerang
cartoons for us to watch while we ate. In addition
to games, Itz also has rides. Instead of tokens, you
get points put on your "credit card". You just swipe
your card each time you want to play a game.
It was a super fun time.

Ian took a few of his points and rode the bumper
cars. He loved it!

Jenna rode the mini roller coaster with some of
her points. As the train would go down the
hill, you could hear her squeals of delight. It was
the "coolest ride ever". She also rode a spinning
ride and since she wasn't quite tall enough, I had
to ride as well. It was not one of my favorite
moments of the day. But, she loved it!

Kirk was really feeling the rhythm
and just couldn't resist doing a
little dancin'.