Seattle trip continued

On our second day in Seattle we went to the Pacific Science Center.  I had previously volunteered at Grant's school for an assembly organized by the science center and so they gave us some free passes.  It definitely doesn't compare with COSI in Columbus, but it was fun and you can't beat free passes!

 The insect exhibit was pretty cool.  Luke was in awe of the statue of a giant praying mantis and stayed put staring at it for about a minute.  It moved its head and body around with pneumatic hisses that he found both mesmerizing and awe-inspiring.

 We also enjoyed checking out the butterfly house.  I couldn't put Luke down for fear he would run over one of the butterflies on the ground, so he squirmed in my arms and eagerly pointed out every butterfly he could see.

My little scientist was pretty good at using the butterfly guide to name the ones he saw.  The kid does enjoy learning and on certain subjects he knows more random facts than I do.

 I'm glad the three of them could be in one car without fighting long enough for a picture. Grant promptly took the wheel and, with singular road rage, began running into imaginary bad guys and cars.  I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

This last picture is for Cheryl.  The walls of the bathrooms were covered with interesting, weird facts and we had to get a picture of this 4 ft tall bottle of Delicious Pee that reminded us of Granty's iconic words said here.

Seattle Zoo

Yes, our trip to the zoo was in fact that exciting.  Actually, what Luke is really excited about was seeing a huge lioness with her cubs about 10 ft in front of him on the other side of the glass.  He started immediately making his favorite cat sound, "MAAOOWW!!" (it's kind of a mix of a really loud and prolonged cat's meow and a cow's moo).

About a month ago, Ryan had a few days off work, so we decided to take advantage of the time and took a little touristy trip to Seattle.  On my second trip to Seattle, the weather was again, absolutely perfect.  It's starting to make me wonder about the veracity of these claims of "incessant cloudiness and rain".  Planning out our two days in Seattle we knew that one of the days had to be spent at the zoo.  Luke has grown into quite the animal lover so we couldn't let him down.  He is our first boy to be able to make the sounds of most animals before saying many words. Needless to say, he looked like the above picture for most of our trip at the zoo, amazed and excited by all the animals, in real life, all in one place. 

 Riding a komodo dragon (statue).  Those things are actually pretty creepy in real life!

 The boys had crawled into some kind of pretend animal burrow for kids to play in.  I'm not sure what that pile is in the middle but hopefully a real animal hadn't made it his burrow :)

 Of course we had to take a ride on the carousel.  Don't worry mom, I was standing right by Luke to keep him on his horse :)

 Near the end of our trip, we came across a really large indoor play area for the kids.  This was one of the kids' favorite stops and they played for over an hour.  I'm sure the place is packed on rainy days. 
I love how intense Grant was, while going to town on the bongos.  He also made an impromptu dance that featured lots of hopping and hip gyrations, to accompany his intense drum playing.  It was pretty much exactly what I would have done too when faced with a solitary bongo, if I didn't fear being escorted from the play area by security.  Kids get all the breaks!

 This was a rare moment when Luke was sitting still, and I jumped at the chance to sit down myself!

Tate cruising down one of the slides.  Overall, I think the zoo was the highlight of the trip.  The boys had a great time and even spent a few minutes sincerely thanking us for taking them on such a fun trip.  Maybe they have figured out that makes us more likely to take them on another?