Pennsylvania Vacation - Day 9

We highly, highly recommend the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, Ohio!! The museum was AWESOME and not very crowded the day we were there.

The boys did a puppet show; an archaeological dig; crawled through boxes and tunnels; played in two different water sensory tables; climbed a circular rope tube which led to two different slides and two different climbing towers, one of which took you above the roof; used pulleys to send a bag of tennis bags up a level to each other and then dropped them in tubes back down; played with wind and different sized balls; danced in a heat activated color changing wall; touched living things from the ocean; visited the tree house and watched for birds on the many bird feeders; drove a pretend car; played vet with stuffed animals; sorted wooden pictures of recyclable materials and put them in a garbage truck, then pushed a button to move them on a conveyor belt out the back of the truck; sat in and played with a mini crane; visited the zoo with meer cats, a bobcat, turtles, skunk, otters, and reptiles; played with Legos; crawled inside a giant turtle shell; saw jewelry and a drum from Ethiopia; and watched (or rather the boys napped through) a great planetarium show about the night sky. WOW!!!

This was a great way to end the vacation!!!!!!!!!!!

Pennsylvania Vacation - Day 8

We left Mike and Teri's about 7:45am and arrived at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio a bit earlier than we had planned, always a good thing! We spent about 3 1/2 hours looking at airplanes and visiting the aviation hall of fame that had some fun, hands on things to do. Mike loved looking at all the planes (as expected) for a second time as we have visited once before and the boys did okay (also as expected!)

pretending to drive the jeep:

The boys were very excited to see chairs out along the way:

Astronaut John:

Astronaut Ryan: There was a playground outside we played on while Mike looked at the outside planes and took more video footage (I think there's about 30 minutes of all the planes!). Then the boys then played with their treasures from the gift shop: spring launched plastic airplanes:

Pennsylvania Vacation - Day 7

Today we slept in and have had a restful day. Teri, Mike, John, and Ryan and I went to a park for a while and then stopped at The Toffee House which is run by one of Mike and Teri's friends. We were given three different samples - DELICIOUS and WOW and YUM!!! (I made off great with the Odds and End basket of toffee and chocolate.)


Then we headed home for lunch and spenpt the afternoon playing Wii - the boys first Wii experience:

Pennsylvania Vacation - Day 6

Today was the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, similar to the Field Museum in Chicago. We saw dinosaur displays and bones, watched a dinosaur movie, looked at minerals, gems and jewels (Mommy's favorite part!) where Mike was reprimanded for filming and I was told I could not have Ryan on my shoulders, life size animal dioramas with animals from North America and Africa (John was in a picture taking mood at this point and I think I took his picture at almost every animal), the Arctic display and Native America displays:hamming it up in front of the T-Rex:

flying like the Pteranodon Family on PBS Kids' Dinosaur Train:

Daddy and his favorite dinosaur:

a dinosaur dig:

Wisconsin's state animal - the badger!

After dinner, we went on a geocache treasure hunt, something our family has never done. We LOVED it and John found the box with the treasure hidden under a piece of bark by a tree.

(We don't like to stage pictures, do we!!??)

Uncle Mike and Little Mike are back there somewhere!

Great way to end the day!