Welcome to the Krazy Kingdom: The Exploratorium Museum

So Saturday we spent most of the day at the San Francisco Exploratorium Museum. I had no idea what was in store for us! This was one of the best museums for kids I've ever been too. The kids had an absolute BLAST! All the exhibits in the museum were hands on & the kids could touch & play as much as they wanted. I think the adults were having just as much fun as the kids were. It was a FUN museum.

There were exhibits EVERYWHERE & there was no way I was going to take pictures of them all (mostly because I wanted to play with the kids), but I took some pictures of the kids' favorite exhibits. The first was a

"floating objects"

exhibit. There, the kids were able to make several different balls float in mid-air. It was SUPER fun! Bladen didn't want to give the balls back when we were done. He's definitely all boy!

Another exhibit we enjoyed was the 30 foot tall

mist tornado!

The museum lets you actually stand in the middle of the tornado, but it dies out as soon as you step into it. All 3 (& then 4) kids got in it & got mad because it wouldn't get 30 feet tall anymore. ha ha ha. They still enjoyed the feel of the wet & the cold air on their faces & hands.

Everybody loved the

GIANT BUBBLES!

Each girl got to have a turn trying to blow the biggest bubble!

There was a fun white wall that showed

Colored Shadows

when you walked in front of it. The kids thought it made a GREAT dance studio! Bladen just stared concerned that there were 3 other Bladens doing the same thing he was doing.

There were optical illusions all over the museum. This one (below) was painted on an actual door. It made me dizzy just staring at it.

For lunch we ate at the cafe in the museum. Tylee & I had nachos & quesadillas, Trek had pizza, & the kids had PB & J! As Trek would put it. . . the food was HEALTHY. (Which means lacking in flavor! ha ha ha) Who puts zucchini in Mexican food? ha ha ha. Afterward we used wipes to clean everyone up. Tylee & I was cracking up because the wipe left pieces all over Trek's face. What a CUTIE!

Cadence learned a little about Symmetry on an old computer, well, not just ANY computer: the first MAC ever made. Trek was in heaven. I love my nerd!

My favorite area of the museum was the "MIND" area. There were SO many things that baffled your mind there. Try standing in a rotating stripe room. It makes you a whole lot sicker than you would think it would, not to mention you walk sideways after spending a few minutes inside.

One of my favorite exhibits was the

sight & smell sensory table.

There were 10 bottles of colored liquid; each bottle had a scent. You had to match the scents with one another (there were 5 different smells). It was amazing how easily you could figure out one scent based on the color of the liquid (example: the orange liquid smelled like oranges, the green smelled like evergreen trees, etc.), but trying to find it's match was almost impossible because of the color (example: blue liquid smelled like oranges, red liquid smelled like evergreen trees, etc.). It's amazing you your senses work together to figure things out. It REALLY messed you up to have the wrong color with the scents. Fascinating.

Taya enjoyed the color dome. You put it over your head & let it change colors. It's fun to see how different colors make you feel inside. She held completely still when it was blue (which is hard for Taya) & when it was red, she was going crazy. Interesting for sure!

Then there was this amazing exhibit in the tinkering studio. A man hand made a sculpture of San Francisco out of TOOTHPICKS!!! It took him 35 YEARS to complete this project & it was absolutely awe inspiring. You could put ping pong balls in 4 different starting areas of the sculpture & they would travel down through "San Francisco" & end at the bottom. I can't believe it was made out of toothpicks. It was CRAZY!

By this time we had been in the museum just short of 5 hours & the kids were starting to get tired. We ended our trip in the biology area where we happened to sit in on two staff members

DISSECTING A COW EYEBALL!!!

I thought I was going to throw up all over everyone. It was disgusting! The girl was holding the eye in her hand & then she squeezed it & juices started squirting out everywhere. I started dry heaving at that point & ran away. UGH! The girls seemed interested though. YUCK!

The kids were beat. They were ready for home.

So we left the museum & walked around the outside of the building on our way back to the car. The outside of the museum is gorgeous! It's like old Roman ruins. We loved it! It reminded Trek & I of Europe.

(Oh how I miss Europe!)