Free OMSI day

Last month I went up to my parents with Sam to let Aimee have some time to study for her last CPA exam. My sister and her family were also there for a stop over the weekend before heading to the coast the following week. The ulterior motive for the trip was to get firewood for our camping trip later that month. It was good I ended up getting more wood than I thought I would need since we used it all.

Before we left, I found that OMSI had sent a note through Facebook that there was a free day there that Saturday, so we packed up the three kids, Sam and his two cousins, and went. I had thought that I wouldn't take Sam since he was either getting over a cold or looking like he was getting one; I don't remember which. I finally talked myself into it and I am glad we did, cuz it was actually pretty fun for Sam.

Here are the pics:
We went through the first Physics section and Sam had a blast playing with everything. He unfortunately didn't want anything to do with the cool ball room, where they had conveyors and other ball transport devices that were moving the balls the kids put in various places in the room to the ceiling or shooting them across the room. I would have liked to explore that a little bit more.


The Natural Sciences section was a little less engaging for Sam, but he liked looking at the bugs and snakes. I tried to get him to sit in front of the globe so I could take a picture, but he didn't seem to like that too much. The thermal image camera was pretty cool, although Sam probably didn't get what it was about; it would have probably made a little more sense had I known there was a hot and cold block you could use on the wall to make patterns that would show up on the camera after they were removed.


Sam seemed to have the best time in the little kid themed area, for obvious reasons. There was a lot more there that was engaging for his age and Tyler and Isaac even had a great time in there. Sam really liked the bear cave with the flashlights and little tunnel.



Sam always has a good time with his cousins and he and Isaac get along especially well. Isaac really looks out for Sam and helps him find toys and plays with Sam very patiently... it is pretty cool to watch. And of course they both love reading with their grandma B.