Exploration Place

There is an interactive science and history museum that sits on the river in downtown Wichita called Exploration Place. The downtown area of Wichita around the river is really cool, they are adding more and more to it all the time, I love walking around down there. I always wished Topeka would update their riverwalk area, no more trash and refrigerators floating down the river. ;) We went to Exploration Place for the first time Friday and had such a great time. I've heard it gets pretty crowded but there was hardly anyone there when we went that afternoon. The building is separated into many different rooms and exhibits. Many of the exhibits stay the same throughout the year with some additions and modifications, there were a couple Kansas history rooms, one was filled with a miniature display of Kansas life with farms, people, tractors, cars, trains, elevators, businesses... it was very cool. There was a combine similator which was pretty neat. There was also a room about aviation with similators for the Wright brother planes as well as modern aircraft and a wind wall. Then there was another part that has traveling exhibits with something new about every four months. Right now the traveling exhibit is called "Grossology" and it gives information about everything gross in the human body. It was definitely gross but pretty cool. Everything is interactive, you can make this human model burp by pumping his stomach with water and air through a straw. You can walk through a really big nose and make "snot" come out of this other human model's "faucet" nose. There were other models you could make vomit and fart and everything else you can think of...body odor, stinky feet... It was gross but it had lots and lots of interesting information and I loved that everything was interactive. Jaxson was a bit freaked out by the human models, ha ha. He wasn't too interested in making them fart or vomit, wait a couple years if it comes back maybe he will find it more amusing, ha ha. There is a room called Tot Spot which is the main reason I wanted to take him there but I was pretty disappointed, there were a lot of toys for his age but they were pretty distroyed and very, very dirty. :P So we didn't stay long in that area. There was also a very bossy girl about 5 who kept taking things away from Jaxson because they were "hers". I had to bite my tongue cause I wanted to tell her and her mom she was a little too old for the toddler area. :)

Playing in the water pond/fountain area in the Tot Spot section. Definitely Jaxson's favorite, anything that involves splashing in water as long as it is not spraying on him, ha ha, he LOVES.

Riding on this teeter totter thing with balls that rolled around inside of it.

Laughing sunflowers. Jaxson was supposed to stick his face in this sunflower and look at himself in a mirror on the other side there was a motion sensor that made the sunflower laugh. Of course it scared him, ha ha. We need to toughen our little guy up a bit!

Thomas the Train set in the Tot Spot area.

Proud of himself because he crawled up on the deck chair all by himself. So funny how they get so amazed and proud at their accomplishments. :)

Plans this week...trip to the zoo with Payton and Avery from daycare, buy an extra carseat finally for daycare, attempt to work at school with Jaxson a few days (yah, right what I really mean is chase him around while he pulls everything off every shelf and out of every basket! :)). The following week, Aug. 2nd, Jaxson will start back at daycare part time and then the following Monday (Aug. 9th) will be his first official day back all day/every day. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be an absolute mess that Monday. I trust his daycare provider fully and I know 100% that she loves him and is taking good care of him but despite that it is still so hard leaving him for someone else to "raise" him. Jason does his best to convince me that is not what she is doing but when I only see him 2 1/2 hours in the evening before bed time and I'm making supper and folding laundry and doing everything else I gotta do within those two hours it sure feels like it sometimes. :( I know he is going to grow up just fine and this is more of a jealous feeling rather than a serious concern but it is an internal fight I know I will be having 9 months out of the year every year until he starts kindergarten.