At-Bristol Science Museum

 Hello again!  Hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to start the new week!

We found some fun close to home on Friday.  Nathan got home at lunch time and we headed over to the @ Bristol Science Center.  First we stopped in at the cafe and had some delicious food.  I had fish and chips and Nathan had bangers and mash.  It was all very yummy!  Grant had his first taste of mashed potatoes and I am beyond happy to report that he LOVES them.  He is the first baby I've had that will actually eat mashed potatoes...so fun!

After a delicious lunch we headed into the museum....with 2 huge school groups of children.  It was a little crazy at first, but once they all left to go to the planetarium show we were the only souls left in the place so it was nice.

The kids giving their 2 cents...err, pence rather.

Dylan standing next to some seriously large landing gear.

 This parachute dart thing was so entertaining they probably could have just played with this all day.

You stick this nerf-like dart that has a parachute attached to it on to the rope and turn a wheel to send it to the top where it hits with enough force to disconnect the dart from the rope and sends the dart parachuting to the ground.

Dylan literally doubled over laughing the first time Leah did it.  I just love watching them have so much fun!

Leah working on a pressure building experiment.

Dylan found this "What's this smell" exhibit.  The one he is smelling in the picture smells like poo...seriously.  So of course doing the little brother thing, he got an unassuming Leah to take a big whiff.  The picture is blurry (because Leah was dancing around desperately trying to fan the smell away) but D's face is priceless, so I had to include it anyway.  This is the stuff memories are made of right here folks.  Ha! 

Don't you just love Dylan's intensity here?

This was a pretty cool experiment.  If you bit down on the rod and plugged your ears you could hear music.  Nathan and I tried it too.  Really neat!

 Next we went upstairs to what I think may have been Mommy and Daddy's favorite part of the museum, the animation exhibit.

The company who makes the "Wallace and Gromit", "Shawn the Sheep", and the Shaw the Sheep spin-off "Timmy Time" (which the kids LOVE watching on the UK version of PBS) is called Aardman and they are based here in Bristol.

They had tons of these backlit tracing tables.  It was really cool!

They also had stations set up where you could make your own claymation movies, which was probably Nathan's favorite part.

I personally prefer the hand drawing myself.  I think I may have missed my calling in animation.  What do you think?

 Grant posing as a sheep.

All of my kids had so much fun...even my big "kid."

We had to stop in the gift shop on our way out because Dylan did hit a potty training milestone while we were at the science museum.  In the midst of playing he stopped and told me he had to go potty for the first time, rather than me asking him if he needed to.  It was a fantastic step in the right direction.  I am so, so proud of him and how well he is doing.

Grant managed to snag a souvenir as well... 

Such a handsome mustache if I do say so myself!

So there you have it, our fun day exploring the science museum.  We had planned to go to Windsor Castle on Saturday, but got deterred by several things.  However, we did have a fun adventure today (Sunday) that I will write about in my next blog.  I am too tired to do another post now, so I will have to work on it tomorrow.  Until next time!