Kidspace

(My apologies for not posting anything sooner. Things have been happening but I just haven't had a chance to write much down. Plus, I tried to upload some pictures and the computer wouldn't cooperate!)

On June 20, we took Zahra to the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena. She'd been to another children's museum before, in Stockton, with my mom (who Zahra refers to as "nana-mommy"). Since Willie and I were at Steve's wedding that day, just based on the pictures, it seemed that the Stockton Children's Museum had more activities than Kidspace. Overall, I think Zahra had a great time and just enjoys being around other little kids in general. Here are some more pictures from that day.

Above is a picture from the enterance. (Yes, that's Max's head peeking out from behind Willie's arm. He was in the baby carrier while Zahra was being lifted up to touch the screen.)

There's Zahra, doing one of her silly poses for the camera. The enterance had really neat tile work.

I was so happy that Max smiled for this picture. He always seems to be content being carried around in the "baby backpack" with his Dad.

We signed Zahra up for a special class about making rockets. The website made the class sound a little more hands-on than it actually turned out to be, but Zahra seemed to enjoy it anyway. Here she is, getting ready to push her button to launch a rocket that had been set up. The teacher explained in detail about how this particular rocket was propelled. He was telling the kids, who were all around Zahra's age, about how there was water in this little container and how water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen and how there was a chemical process that occured that separated the molecules and as a result, the contraption was able to capture the energy and then something ignited a spark which then somehow turned into the energy that was used to propel the rockets into the sky. The explanation was way over their heads and all the kids seemed to care about was when they could push the button to send their own little rocket shooting upwards. The rockets launched so high when you looked up in the sky, you couldn't see them because they got lost in the clouds.

Here's a closer shot of what the rockets looked like before they were set up and the kids got to press the launch buttons.

Looking at some butterflies...

Here is Zahra, running next to the little fountain of water that would intermittently shoot up little streams of water. It was a rainy day and pretty overcast and cool out, so we didn't want Zahra to get wet. One time she did run directly over the water and she got her pants wet, but it didn't seem to bother her a bit.

Zahra pushing up the little pins. I remember in the 80s or maybe it was the early 90s when you could buy smaller versions of these and everyone thought they were really cool. It was kind of fun to play with a very big one (as you can see my hand next to hers).

I'm not sure what this exhibit is about or where that silly smile came from... but she was having fun. (No, her arm and hand are not dirty. She had temporary tattoos on. An octopus and a pirate, respectively.)

Well, that's about it for Kidspace. They also had tricycles and a little path to ride on. They had a class where you could make a tie-dye tie for Dad's since it was Father's Day weekend. Zahra got to touch a little box turtle and make ginger ale. We think they got the ginger ale recipe a little off, though, because when we took the plastic bottle home, we forgot about it until the next day (which, we weren't supposed to touch it until the next day anyway). So when we looked at the bottle, you could see that it had expanded from all the pressure inside and I made Willie open it up because I was scared it would explode. So, sure enough, as he's opening it over the kitchen sink, I'm in the living room and I hear this really loud boom. He barely twisted off the cap and the contents just came exploding out all over the sink. We refridgerated the remains of what was left in the bottle and let Zahra taste it later. It was pretty ginger-y.

All in all, though, it was a fun day to take Zahra somewhere new where she could interact and participate in different events.