Cincinnati Museum Center

The museum complex used to be the train station which was built in 1931 in the art deco style.

We're doing our best to make the most of our reciprocal museum membership before it's up by the end of the month.  Even though we've gotten our money's worth out of it, we're still undecided about renewing for another year...so even though we weren't exactly thrilled at the thought of spending another full day at another museum, we headed to the Cincinnati Museum Center anyway.  We went to the Duke Energy Children's Museum and the Museum of Natural History and Science, both housed in the old train station building.  We did have to pay for parking, just $6.  The children's museum was a huge hit...and not just for the littles.

The supermarket was a big hit as you can see from that smile.

This was one of the best childrens museums we have been to.

Steve relaxing with his phone.

Jakeman loved the toddler section!

All four kids had a lot of fun playing, but Genna and Jake had an absolute blast.  This was probably the best children's museum we've been to.  We had to pry them away to eat lunch...a true rarity these days as someone is always begging for food.  The pictures really say it all! 

Words can hardly describe how much fun she had here.

Shanan having fun with the magnetic letters

They also had a blast in the "ball room" after the school groups left.

The treadmill works the conveyor belt to lift the balls to the top.

After lunch, we checked out the Museum of Natural History and Science, which had its merits as well.  The Cave and Glacier Walk were fun, as was the five and under sandy play area.  It was a stark contrast to the Creation Museum of yesterday though!  The highlight for us was the Children's Museum, for sure.       

Creation Museum

We wanted to go here, but initially, we had a bit of sticker shock over it.  It cost over $70 for our family for the day.  We planned well though and arrived at opening and stayed till close; we're good at making sure we get the most bang for our buck, you know! The kids did an extra session, Monkey Business, which cost extra and lasted an hour.  If you plan on doing more than one of the "extras" and also plan to see the whole museum (and read all the displays and watch all the videos), you'd need more than a day to do it. We missed the Petting Zoo portion, unfortunately.  The botanical gardens are beautiful though, and you are welcome to bring your own picnic lunch to eat there.  It was so nice to not have to eat in the parking lot!

The 7 C's are the core teaching of the museum

You can click on the pictures to expand and read the words

It might be expensive, but this is a great museum!  Every other museum we've been to always explains things with the foregone conclusion that evolution is fact.  It is refreshing to see the flip side of that coin, for sure!  I also learned things I didn't know.  For example, radio isotope dating on rocks formed during Mt. St. Helen's explosion just 32 years ago showed that these rocks are millions of years old...therefore showing that dates that "prove" the Earth's age are rather suspect.  I also didn't realize that dinosaur bones have been found with soft tissue still inside!  If you are a believer and aren't sure how to handle the evolution question, this is a great place to start!  It gave us lots to think about, discuss, and research further!

The Snopes Trial.   Steve is related to William Jennings Byran who was the defense lawyer .

Lots of scoffers these days

 I liked the way they discussed that your findings on a particular fossil can vary because your starting points are different.   If you assume that the earth is billions of years old, and if you assume there is no divine Creator, then you will interpret a dinosaur fossil using that filter.   Another scientist who believes that God created the earth and everything in it will look at the same exact fossil and come to a different conclusion.

They also made it clear that natural selection does not equal evolution.   Basically most scientists interpret the results like this: natural selection + gazillion years = species evolution.   The gazillion years is supposed to explain everything; you are supposed to throw all logic out the window and just accept that a gazillion years is the answer.  The fact that most modern families in the animal kingdom are represented in the fossil record does not support species evolution.  There is an answer, however, and it is not evolution; there is a God who spoke it all into existence.  That same God loves us and does intervene in our lives.  For us, the most vivid recent example was when He prompted Steve to change his plans and stop early in New Mexico. When we stopped, we discovered the wheel had come off the front axle on the rig, and we were riding on one wheel on the right side, with our rear axle supporting all the weight. The wheel-less axle was hovering mere inches above the ground.  God didn't speak out loud; he spoke by giving Steve an inexplicable uneasy feeling.  It took a while for him to listen, but once he did he immediately felt more peace.  Had we kept going, the tire supporting the whole rig on the right side would have blown, and we could have totaled it!  (We had another 90 miles to get where we were going.)

We stayed until the museum closed, and when we left, we were all tired and hungry; imagine that!  Steve was itching to try Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati thing, so we stopped for dinner.  It was a fluke that we happened to stop on "Kids Eat Free" night, definitely a big bonus!  There were slightly mixed reviews--Steve, Genna, and Alyssa all loved it, and Shanan & I thought it was okay but not great.  Jake was uninterested in food altogether; he was focused on trying to give Steve's keys to the guy sitting at the booth next to us.  Such a socialite!

Skyline Chili was a thumbs up!  The girls loved sitting at the "bar" all by themselves!

Visiting the Payne's

We had the chance to visit our good friends from Texas that moved to Indiana nearly four years ago, the Paynes.  I used to watch Amy's three boys for her while she did part-time work when Alyssa and Truman were both about Jake's age.  Fun times!  Even though their driveway wasn't long enough to park the rig, we were able to park on the street in front of their house & just not slide.  I think the neighbors noticed. ;)

They took our kids to a church event while Steve & I went out for a birthday date.  It is so awesome to be able to go out on a date and know the kids are with people we know and trust and are actually having great times without us!  Since my birthday was Saturday, and Truman's birthday was Sunday, we got to share a little birthday fun.  We also got to visit their church, take some great pictures at a nearby park (thanks so much for doing that, Amy!), and go out for a birthday lunch.  The birthday boy chose Golden Corral, and my oh my, the kids were delighted with the buffet experience.  I think Steve was pretty delighted with the Chocolate Wonderfall himself! ;)

Jake shoved food in Linda's mouth just before I took this.

The cake for Linda and Truman 

It was fun to watch our girls and their boys figure out how to interact with each other! ;)  Harrison was clearly a big hit with both littles.  Jake bonded with Tommie, of course; he's a one-woman man through and through!  And last but certainly not least, I got to hang out and chat with a great girlfriend that I miss living close to!  She even treated me to frozen yogurt for my birthday...our little secret since the kiddos would have been jealous!  By the way, if you're in the Newburgh, Indiana area and looking for professional organizing services, check out Lasting Order.  I hear she's really good! :)

Here are the pictures we took after church at Audubon State Park in Henderson, Kentucky.  Amy took some great shots!  

It was a short stop over, but we had great times catching up with the Paynes!!!

St Louis Science Center and the Famous St Louis Arch

Although we were a bit weary from our unexpected long and eventful day yesterday, we had to return our rental, so back into the city we went.  After returning the rental, we went to the Science Museum, also free.  Although parking is $10, our reciprocal museum membership got us free parking this time.

I just love these machines

We did rush our time here a bit as we decided to also visit the Arch, so we could avoid another big commute tomorrow and have a quiet day to catch up on sleep and things like blogging. ;)  Although the admission to the museum itself is free, there are lots of "special" exhibits that you have to pay extra for.  I know Shanan would have loved to spend more time here as she is so good at taking the time to read each and every exhibit carefully...and then she remembers it!  Love that about her!  Jake loved the laser harp; he would make music and then dance to it!  Love this age!  We also really enjoyed the "architecture" section.

It was a true family team effort to put this arch together.

Linda was determined to put this together, and Jake was equally determined to tear it down! 

After finally finding parking for the Arch--so don't love looking for parking for our big truck in big cities...parking garages and many parking lots are out--we made tracks over to it.  I love the green grass and trees around it.  It's a lovely place for a picnic and a stroll, which we of course had no time for.   Genna had a massive meltdown on the way which actually paled in comparison to the mega meltdown she had when she had to get out of the stroller to go through security at the entrance.  Oh my!  I was sure I would have to stay down with her and Jake!  Alas, she did settle down and promised me no meltdowns about going up to the top of the Arch.  And she made good on it, too!  It's a long process from the time you buy your tickets to the time you actually board the tram to go up.  When it first opened, there were only stairs to go up, over 1,000 of them!  Now, you must ride the tram.  If you're claustrophobic, severely so, you may want to avoid going up; the trams are tight!  Each little car seats five, so our family filled one by ourselves.  It takes four minutes to go up, and you can stay at the top as long as you wish.  The ride down only takes three minutes.

This was taken at a traffic light heading to the arch.

Here is a side view

I wish we had more time to spend on the grounds.

When we arrived at the bottom again, Steve had to run back to feed the meter because we didn't have enough time left on it for the kids to finish up their Junior Ranger badges.  The Park Ranger that gave them their badges did a great job asking questions and reinforcing what they learned.  I love it when they do that; it really helps them remember.

We still had to boogy back to the truck, but this time, it started just fine, and we got to make good on that promise of dinner out. :)  A much better ending to the day indeed!!

Inside of the tram capsule 

Shadow over the Mississippi River

Downtown St Louis

At the highest point

St Louis Zoo and Unexpected and Unwelcome Adventures

We decided to visit St Louis, MO and take advantage of some of their free city sights.  We parked the rig at a campground onsite at yet another condo and actually stayed inside the condo.  Although it was great to have free lodging, the 50 mile commute to the city wasn't all that delightful.

Although the St Louis Zoo itself is free, the parking lot costs $15.  We actually planned to park there because taking a family of six to the zoo for $15 is super reasonable.  However, we saw plenty of cars and street parking along the road leading up to the zoo and decided to park for free like many others and just have a bit longer of a walk to get to the zoo.  As we were unloading, Steve saw a policeman on bike and verified that it was fine to park.  The officer assured him that it was, but he also said to be sure to hide any valuables, like a GPS.  Sooo...we did, and we took off.  More on that to come. ;)

This is Robert. He likes people a lot!

The Hippo exhibit was awesome!

The zoo itself was great!  Big zoo, lots of animals, lots of exhibits.  We arrived early to be able to get into the children's zoo area for free (it's free for the first hour only).  Honestly, it was crowded, and we took off for the main part of the zoo pretty quickly.  There is a lot of construction going on right now, but even so, there was still plenty to see!  The hippo exhibit was definitely the best I've seen; you could actually see the hippos swimming underwater, right next to the glass!  The baby elephant was awfully cute, too!  It really is amazing that this zoo is free!

This baby elephant was born in June, the same time we began our adventures.

The Penguins were lots of fun and put on quite a show. 

Catching flies after a long day at the zoo

After much walking, we finally decided we'd seen all the open exhibits and began our trek back to the truck about an hour before the zoo closed.  We were all tired and hungry and excited to go out for dinner on our way back home.  Alas, we arrived at the truck, loaded all the children, and then Steve proceeded to panic because, without my knowledge, he had pulled the security chip from the truck (which is necessary to start the truck) and placed it in his pocket when we left the truck in the morning.  The chip was g-o-n-e, and we had no way to start the truck!  He took off back to the zoo, retracing his footsteps, and I stayed back with the kids, praying and cleaning out the truck, hoping that somehow, someway, it would turn up.  Ummmm...it didn't.  Enough said, right?  We had a real problem on our hands!

Fortunately, we have a second security chip, but Steve keeps it in the rig, which was 50 miles away.  He called Enterprise and had them pick him up to rent a car.  After getting it, he picked up some food and dropped it off at the truck for us to eat, good man that he is. ;)  Then, he took off to go get the security chip. Thankfully, this was a pretty safe area, and I keep extra diapers, water, snacks, toys, and even books in the truck.  There was even a most disgusting park bathroom close by where we were parked, a good thing as we were stuck there for over 4 hours!

The girls made good use of the time reading

These two made the best of it by having outside play time.

Steve finally arrived with the oh-so-necessary security chip, and  we drove home (another hour), getting home around 10pm.  We had been gone for nearly 14 hours, and Steve had driven over 200 miles!  What-a-day!!  I have to say that all four kiddos were absolutely awesome about it.  Could have been so much worse, but it sure wasn't fun, either!  Life is so not boring!