Outing day

I took the children to the Tech in San Jose today. We had been there once before to see Body Worlds.

There was a hands-on experiment that the boys got to participate in to clean "dirty" water. They used alum to precipitate the "dirt" out of the water. Then they made a water filtration system using two sizes of sand and small rocks held in by a coffee filter. The water came out looking murky, but much cleaner than when it went in.

After our experiment, we spent about an hour exploring the computer exhibits before going to see the Tiger movie at the dome theatre.

The screen was more of a dome which created an artificial feeling of movement because as you're looking straight ahead, the screen fills up your peripheral vision as well. Hunter is a very physical person and so the feeling of movement while sitting in his seat was unnerving for him. Elle, on the other hand felt like she was going to fall because the seating was very steep. She sat on my lap during the movie and held on with a death grip the whole movie. Ethan thought it was fun.

We stayed until about 3 o'clock exploring all the different exhibits. Unfortunately they were remodeling the younger children's areas, which were the favorites the last time we visited.

The parking garage that did validation with the Tech had a broken down elevator. We, of course, parked on the top level and since I had the stroller, we had to walk through the garage all the way down...and then back up at the end of the day.

After we got home Elle went into the yard and started picking wildflowers out of the front yard to give to everyone. It was so picturesque I couldn't help myself.