We’ve been twice in the last week, which is surprising to me. But then again, it’s a large playground to them… It’s not like they are going to actually spoil the fun learning anything.

Part of the attraction of the Science museum for me was obviously trying to get the kids interested in Science. That actually wasn’t very difficult. William isn’t showing preferences.. It’s all good. Mary is 5, so therefore EVERYTHING must be answered. If we can get the scientific method involved there, we’ll be ahead of the game.

So, we went for the Winter wonderland exhibit… Which, frankly, was an artificial snow machine (soap suds). Joy. And a Planetarium movie on Ice Worlds.

Color me unimpressed.

MV and W, however, were thrilled. 2 hours later, as we were leaving that afternoon (New Years Eve), it was decided that we would come back.

That turned out to be Saturday. Quicker than anticipated.

At this point, Daddy is reeling from a Camera body that he’s been waiting months for…. and it doesn’t focus. At all. The motors don’t click, nada. Disappointing is not really the word. So we’re taking the old one (which, truth be told, is still a good body. It’s just not … ), because the only place I could get stock on this was from a shop out of New York that I’ve done business with before. So there wasn’t going to be any resolution to this problem this weekend.

I’ve decided to limit myself even more, using a single 50mm prime lens.

Good news, it’s cheap.

Better news, it’s fast, which helps since there isn’t any LIGHT in this place.

Best news, it’s sharp, light, and makes a camera package that I can weave around the center without worry.

The Center of the Adventure Science Museum is a multi-story tower filled with various activities. It’s actually one of my biggest gripes, because it simply hasn’t changed since we first went there several years ago. A refresh would not hurt it one bit.

The kids didn’t care, so long as they could climb to the top!

The other area that seems to be static in time is the Body Quest exhibit. For William, the slide out of the lower intestine, complete with bodily noises was the best ever…

Unless you count the Ambulance.

Mary, who apparently maintains that a flower in the hair is perfectly sanitary in an OR, was intent on surgery. With Ketchup as the main tool, obviously. Apply directly to the retina.

Scattered around the center are various activities, including the ever popular coin eating spiral of death! Every aquarium, museum, and shopping center was one of these, and we have to hit it each time. The Adventure Science center was no different.

Or was it?

Yes, they plugged the hole at the bottom, so you could repeat the coin rolls over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. With Sister’s help, William was quite enthusiastic to do exactly that.

The newest exhibits were relating to the Sudekum Planetarium. The Kids really enjoyed this. 2 liter air pressure Bottle rockets, planet displays, stars, and weightlessness displays were all fun.

If they would only let Mary do them.

She’s big enough! Look!

No, NOT at the feet! Maybe in the summer.

And to close it out…. Jack stayed at home. Doing this.

(taken with the new body, manually focused, but in the dark! 2 stops better than the best the old could do! The replacement should be here this week.)

And unfortunately, much like Star Wars and the Matrix, the third episode isn’t as good as anyone would have wished.

(Or at least the post isn’t… The kids unveiling was just fine)

We loaded the Kids into the vehicle at the Space center, and proceeded up 565 towards Nashville. Since we were leaving ~4:15pm, and the Airshow was ending about the same time, there was definitely some apprehension from me about how much traffic we were going to get into. Turns out, aside from a 5 minute slow period of about 35mph on the interstate, there wasn’t any major issue. That wasn’t bad at all. And both kids were out before we hit 65 North.

Mary slept the whole way, dreaming of the surprise to come. (We had to tell her something to detach her from her grandmother!) William slept most of the way, and then, in a fashion unique to himself, woke and screamed through half of Tennessee. Mary was oblivious.

Mary woke 2 minutes away from the house, perfect timing intact.

Jeff began to get the kids out while I grabbed the Camera bag and ran to the back. The Video camera went on the fort itself, the SLR in my hand, and the rest of the bag everywhere else. You can see the chaos spread since I was trying to make sure I caught their face when they saw it.

Pictures are here.

And the video (technical issues NOT resolved) is here:

Mary And William discover the Playfort from Greg Nicholson on Vimeo.

I’m a bit peeved. It took multiple multi hour sessions to get the video encoded from 1080i to 720p H264 AND under the limit for Vimeo. And then, it turns out that it failed on their end, and (based on the result) it looks like they down-sampled pretty heavily just to get it up. My guess is that the original file exceeded their encode parameters. If you are in the adventurous mode, and you’ve got tons of bandwidth, you can download the original .MOV file, at 485M. It’s probably not worth it though.

I’ll probably re-encode just the initial reactions and upload them on Wed when the counter resets.

The kids loved the fort, and they have played on it every day. William freaked again today when he saw it. It will be interesting to see how long it’s ‘new’ to him.

It is absolutely worth it. Not saying that I want to do it again anytime soon, but it was/is definitely worth it.

This turned out to be pretty easy, as Grandmother met us at the Cullman exit Crackerbarrel. Neither kid knew anything about it, and their faces when they saw her was priceless. Mary was all smiles, and William was literally trying to rip himself out of the car seat to get to her.

William was funny, as immediately after getting Grandma, he holds his hands up and to the side, and with a quizical look, “Papa?”

Papa was still at home, as his treatments haven’t left him with much energy. Thankfully they will be over soon.

We had figured that this would reduce the amount of time the kids were in the car, and give them some time with the Grandparents. They just don’t seem to get enough of that anyways! Next week was the Airshow in Huntsville, so we’d return for that. In the meantime, we had our own plans!

And no, it’s not what you think! (or us for that matter).

We bought the Kids a playfort. That was Monday Lunchtime. I’ll now show you the following week. It’s completely wrong than an entire week compresses to 30 seconds. It looks best if you press the expand icon next to the Vimeo logo. That will show the clip in 720p High def.

Playhouse Construction from Greg Nicholson on Vimeo.
Rockwalls and Upside down mounting beams SUCK.

We spent practically every available moment building this thing. Both came home at lunch, and we worked from 5 till after ten most nights to get this done before the kids returned. Jeff was quite happy at first, when on Wed, it started to storm. She actually thought I might stop and we could go eat dinner at the local Mexican place. HA! There were parts that could be constructed in the Garage. She didn’t speak very much to me that night.

I don’t think the kids missed us at all, although they did ask once if we thought about them. Oh, I assured them, they never wandered from our minds.

We went to the Wednesday storytime for preschoolers as we missed the Monday Toddler Time. MaryVic had a great time but William was a bit distracted. He wanted to push the stroller all over the place. They both enjoyed the craft and visiting everyone.

It was a nice day and we went to the playground outside the library.

Last year, Mary couldn’t do this without help. This year she has mastered it and insisted on having several pictures taken.

Very proud!

Lunch with Daddy afterwards. She was being goofy and refused to smile.

I found a toy that they hadn’t seen in a while and she’s begging William to share it. He would look at her and go “NO!

Dance class on Saturday. Another one spent walking the stroller.

Little did I know it was in preparation for this! We went to the Family Fun Zone at Thoroughbred Theater. We took the shopping cart with us. He pushed the cart around, chased the Chik-Fil-a cow and was able to flee the other mascots in this manner. I sat down with him in the chalk drawing area and asked him if he wanted to draw. I pointed him towards the chalk and pushed his cart on over. This was the second or third piece of chalk because I was so surprised to see him start walking independently. I was busy cheering and yelling at Greg who was being superdad and standing with MaryVic in the facepaint line.

After that I was brave enough to put him in a bouncy with some other tots. It was 4 years old and younger only and not crowded.

He liked being in but this is all he did. He went in it again but immediately wanted out.

The next morning I heard MaryVic coaxing William down the stairs. It is the first time since the accident that William got out of bed himself (the guest bed) and came downstairs. “Come on little fella, it’s not far now…” They were very cute. They haven’t made another trip down the stairs together.

One of only two pictures I have of William walking at the zoo on Sunday. I think there was the ‘help, my feet won’t stop’ red shoes deal going on. He would stop and squat frequently to rest. He occasionally laid down in the path to rest. He did not want us to pick him up and if we persisted in asking, he’d get up and go for a little bit more.

Sunday was probably the most he has walked with it getting less frequent as the week goes on. He does a mix of moving via crawling and walking. I picked up papers from daycare and we’ll see how he does on Tuesday for half day.

We’ve kept busy and went to Toddler Time this past Monday. He did walk around the library. He fell down the bonus room stairs Monday night but was okay. He calmed down fairly quickly compared to the playground fall in Arab.

On Tuesday MaryVic went to school. William and I did the grocery shopping and visited Home Depot for lock for the front door. MaryVic can unlock it so Greg has put a flip lock at the top. Not high security but it should keep her in. She stepped out one day and I thought she was with Greg, he thought she was with me… I found her wandering on the sidewalk in front of the house. I think she was looking for aliens. I don’t know why the child security doorknob thing works on the other doors. Yes, we do have one on the front door. I guess I should take it off now.

Yesterday we went to the pool and stayed around the house in the afternoon. It was interesting as the air conditioning guys were here until in the evening. A little more interesting when we found the hole in the ceiling but they were genuinely apologetic. As MaryVic, likes to say ‘accident’s happen’.

I twittered yesterday about the doctor and it doesn’t seem to be anything major. I woke up Tuesday morning and checked on William who was fussing at 3 a.m. I noticed my right eye hurt and went to get it checked. The doctor said it was probably just sinuses and gave me some prescription eyedrop samples. She told me to take some sudafed.

Today is a quiet, rainy day. We may go to the pool again after naps. We’ll just take it easy and let the air conditioning guys finish up. The patching guys have already been here and will be back next week. Air conditioning guys are back to finish up. Greg is home talking to them so we should be all done with that soon!