Year 3, October 26th, 2018: The Hike That Wasn't

The Hoodie Obsessed teen tried out the different pulley systems to see which one was easier to pull on to raise him up.  They had 2, 3, and 4 pulleys and of course the 4 pulley one was easiest.  I tried it and Jared still had to help me get all the way up.  I guess I really am that weak.  But the kids did it over and over again, so it must have been fun for them!

OOOKKKKKKKK, yup, that happened.  Jared and Benaiah both took off work today so we could go on a big family hike on a moderately rugged trail.  Well, God had other plans and made it rain ALL day.  Which means, if I want to get that hike in, it will be without them.  Oh well.  What we did instead was took a "one tank getaway" trip to the WonderLab in Bloomington, which is like a mini Children's Science Museum.  Well, it felt like it was mini because we are used to our really big Children's Museum of Indianapolis.  It was actually filled with tons and tons and tons of great science activities that reinforced all the physical science we learned last year.  I choose that one because it was over an hour away (the hike was going to be nearly two hrs away) and because it is part of our Access Pass where we pay $2 per person at a dozen or so Indiana museums.  You see, now that most of the kids are older, I am itching to do more of the field trips that take up to 2 hrs to get to.  And I really wanted to try doing a moderately rugged hike with lots of stairs and even ladders like Jared and I went on last year.  I think the boys would be fine, Keturah would complain a bit but be ok, and depending on the length, we may or may not take Abishai.  But when I asked Abishai if he wanted to go, he immediately said yes, so I was going to choose an easier, but still moderate trail he could do or be carried on Jared's shoulders for.  I then remembered that he has enjoyed the hikes we've taken, so it wouldn't really be fair to leave him behind with Grandma.  Anyway, it was a great plan that didn't happen.

But, we spent almost 4 hrs in the WonderLab and everyone got to thoroughly enjoy almost all the activities, even Benaiah, who mostly hung out with his iPod and earbuds and built things out of Kinex.  Ok, fine, at least he was there.  He slept to and from Bloomington as well.  *sigh, teenagers*  At least I try to keep him involved in family life.  Jared loves watching the kids play and discover things and is always willing to participate if I ask him to.  Of course, I'm aware of his workload and don't ask him every single time.  Plus, I like to have him around as a second pair of eyes which was extremely helpful this time because the WonderLab has two floors and a few hiding spots and Abishai was in crazy boy form.  Abishai gets all jazzed up around people (extrovert) and then he starts to go into bully mode, pushing his way through everybody and everything.  Then when he's exhausted, he goes even faster and becomes more obstinate.  Some might suggest his strong willed or ADHD, but I just think he's got an extroverted personality that needs time to mature and at times, be reigned in.  We'll work on it.  But that means, we need to be at his side 24/7.  That's hard to do! Sometimes he literally trips over his own two feet because he's speeding through life faster than the Energizer Bunny himself (which has been a nickname for Gary by some people over the years).  One more thing, one more thing, one more thing!  And Abishai almost says it that way, too!  He'll put up his pointer finger and say, "One more time, ok?" Oi!

Because the WonderLab is smaller and we can easily see most of the exhibits on the floor we were on, we let Keturah and Justin roam.  The rule is that 12 yr olds and under have to be supervised by adults, but we were checking in with Keturah frequently enough because she was showing us things, that it wasn't a problem.  Keturah did get a tiny bit bored right at the end and was ready to leave, but Justin was deeply engrossed on building a house (see below) that he didn't say a peep about wanting to leave.  Yeah!  I took a bunch of pictures, so I'll show you some of their favorite exhibits down below.  We all ate a granola bar around 12:30pm and then ate the lunches we brought in the car when we were done with the museum at 2pm.  We were able to park right across from the WonderLab with street parking in downtown Bloomington for $1 per hour.

Bloomington, IN, is home to Indiana University and it's a university town through and through.  In fact, the main part of the campus takes up 1/4 of the blocks in downtown.  The student population is 48,500 just for this campus!  Yikes! That's more than the whole population of Charlottetown, PEI! (I feel like we just talked about this.  Oh yeah, it was in the August blog post when we were down here for Holiday World).  The total population for Bloomington: 84,000 including students!  That means that half of the population is students and the median age is 24!  The largest employer is the school,at 9,700 employees, the Cook Group, at 4,563, the IU Health-Bloomington at 2,114, and the Monroe County Community School Corporation at 2,051.  Because it's a university with masters and doctorate programs, I'm sure there's a ton of young families there, too. It didn't take long to drive from one side of the city to the other (we came in from the west and continued out directly to the east (see the next paragraph).  The funny thing is, Jared has never ever been to Bloomington or IU! There just wasn't a desire or need to.  We have an extension of IU, at IUPUI, which is Indiana University/Purdue University in Indianapolis, where the two schools partner up to form a mostly commuter school in downtown Indy.  Each student receives a degree either fro IU or Purdue though, not IUPUI.  We have an IU hospital in Indy and of course Riley's Children's Hospital where Justin had his arm surgery is part of the IU system.  My physical therapy was going to be through them.  I just love how it's all connected and yet, Jared has never had the occasion to go south one hour to the main campus.  Most of his close friends went to other colleges.  So, all that to say, when we were driving on the edge of the campus, he kept saying, "I'm not going to change lanes because I don't want to know say I've been on the campus of IU."  Silly guy.  I will say the dorms looked humongous!  Like 10 stories high! Nevermind the rest of the smaller frat houses and apartment buildings on and off campus.  We didn't drive through the campus itself, but I'm sure it's lovely.  It's a nearly 200 year old university founded in 1820, only 4 years after Indiana became a state.  And yes, it's the university that is featured in the movie "Hoosiers."  Typical state school, too.  Anyway, neat little history.

After exiting Bloomington, we head straight east to Brown County State Park to at least drive through the "tree tunnels" and see some foliage.  It was the perfect compromise for this fall leaf peeping New England girl.  I've always wanted to go leaf peeping, and after living on PEI and having the chance to drive those country roads often in the fall and see all the wonderful colors, it's made me miss NH even more.  I have always said that fall is my favorite season and I miss see the forest full of color.  Sure there's a few trees here and there along the edges of farm fields or in the neighborhood yards, but it's hard to find FOREST right here in Indy.  At least not until I discovered Eagle Creek last year.  And since Jared and I had such a fabulous time last year at Turkey Run soaking in the cool weather and gorgeous trees, I wanted to do something to repeat it and include the kids this time.  So, we drove into the park, stopped at one of the overlook towers, although it was misting and cold, stayed for a few minutes, I took a few pictures of trees around us, and then we got back in the car.  No, I didn't make the kids pose in front of some trees like I had hoped would happen, and I didn't get pictures from being on a hiking trail, but it was "good enough" for today without ruining the decent moods everybody was in.  I did NOT get a single selfie during the day, so when I attempt to take just the three kids next week, I'll try to do that.  It's peak leaf peeping week here, so I have to put the school books down and just GO.  Plus there's a lot of rain over the next 10 days.  So basically, we paid $7 to drive about 15 minutes through the park, take a few videos and pictures of the drive, and drive out the north gate.  The park does go much further south, but we saw just enough to satisfy my thirst for colorful leaves and get Benaiah back to Indianapolis on time to help out at Mr. Nanney's church.

As we were driving back north from Brown County, I suddenly made the connection between Brown County State Park, a town called Nashville, and of all things, our honeymoon!  Now, I knew we went to Brown County to ride horses, and I knew our bed and breakfast and little town we walked around in were near there, but I didn't realize the exact location or town name.  Our friends the Wagar used to live down there in Nashville, and so that's the only thing I knew about it or thought I had connection to the town.  But as we drove through it, I had the aha moment and then tried to quickly look around for the shops I remember going in.  I remember one that we bought a baking dish from and maybe another one.  Jared remembers that the B&B was maybe a block from the main street, the street we were driving on.  Well, how about that! 17 years later, here we are, driving home from being out with all 4 of our kids and we were about a block away from our first couple of nights together.  Cool!  I think I've been to Brown County one other time, but most of our routes south take us slightly east of there on the highway, not the state roads, so we haven't had the occasion to really go down there since our honeymoon.  It was neat to reminisce about it, too, and to look back (literally and figuratively) at how far we've come in life.  Crazy! And fun, and hard, all at the same time.

Abishai had fallen asleep on the way between Bloomington and getting out at the watchtower in Brown County, but now he was awake and it was one interesting ride home with stir crazy baby making every sound imaginable to keep himself entertained while Benaiah put earbuds in and slept all the way home.  We are definitely one of those families you see in TV movies like Home Alone sometimes with the big brother teenager and annoying sister and tazmanian devil baby.  Most of the time, it drives me nuts, but today it didn't.  I was content to let things be.  I fought hard for a day like today, asking for the guys to take the day off, changing plans last minute, making sure my expectations weren't too high, being patient with said teenager and preschooler, and spending less than $25 for a whole day's worth of entertainment (plus gas).  For the 364 days a year I feel like I don't "win" at life, today was the 1 day I did, praise the Lord!  And I even went to bed before midnight! (Yes, I'm typing this up the next day). 

		Wonderlab/Brown County Video Playlist

Kind of easy to pull your own weight up when you weigh 80 lbs soaking wet.

Mrs. 70 lbs has some mighty strong arms!

By far, the most interesting thing to the kids was the water play.  They would walk over and play for a few minutes and then go do something else.  Then a few minutes later, they were back at the water table.  I love how this one had so many more interactive pieces to it, especially for the older kids.  The ball would drop down from up above and swirl around in the funnel, coming out at the bottom.  Sometimes it would get stuck though!  (more pictures of the water are below)

Abishai was NOT afraid of these scary dinosaur.  When you walk up to it and put your feet on the paw prints, it will roar and talk back to you.  It didn't phase Abishai at all.

Roar! Scary teeth!

There were real live animals, too!  Lizards, snakes, fish, bees, ants and hissing cockroaches. Ew!  I didn't take a picture of the bees, but it was set up in a similar way to the one at Tuttle's Orchard and at the Holliday Park nature center.  Only this poor hive had an infestation of some kind of beetle that would lay it's eggs in the honeycomb and then they would hatch and hurt the hive's resources, etc.  I was a bit grossed out because the musuem had the edges of the hive taped up but the larvae were still getting out.  The bees couldn't squeeze through though.  Then I saw them looking around the floor for any loose larvae.  I'm not sure why they didn't have that part blocked off so visitors wouldn't step on any.  I'm sure they'll have to take apart the hive at some point and that isn't going to be pretty.  Poor bees.  They are connected to the outside through a tunnel and that was intact.  Anyway, this guy pictured above is a churckwall from southwest US and Mexico.

This museum also had the lilly pad climbing structures we've seen at our Children's Museum's Playscape and Greenwood Community Center's play space.  Abishai attempted it but didn't get far.  Both Keturah and Justin loved it of course.  I would have been afraid to go up in it!

Higher and higher.

She squeezed herself into the very top.  This one did not have an opening to the second story though, and I don't think the Greenwood one did either.

 Frame by frame animation.  Although Abishai just liked watching himself move the dinosaurs around.

Yup, the monkeys are in the trees.

It's a long way down!

Benaiah spent most of the 4 hrs sitting here building with kinex.  We have a large box of these at home.  But this area had wheels and battery packs.  Pretty neat!

Scaled down version of a similar one at the Children's Museum.  Sweet!

Bed of nails!  This brought me back to seeing the Ninja Warriors at the state fair this summer who also did this trick. Because your weight is evenly distributed, creating more surface area, the nails hold you up, and don't really poke you.  Move, and you'll feel something though.

You lay down on the bed without the nails poking up.  Then you push a button and they start to rise.  Then you push the button again, and they'll go back in.  Sweet!

Wa-we!

Making huge bubbles!  They didn't have the kind where you step inside the circle and then raise the bubble up around you, but playing with them reminding me of that one that is in science museum in Louisville.  On our vacation to Louisville in 2006, we went there while Aaron and Shauna lived there before moving to NOLA.

Woah!  This one moved really, really slow!

What happens when you put air inside different liquids?  Some liquids let it esacpe quickly, and some make bigger bubbles and it escapes slower.  They had silicon and corn syrup and motor oil, etc.

Bed of nails!  Don't move!

Not super sharp, but you could feel them.  I wish I had taken the time to try it!

Raising up a parachuted army guy and letting it go and watching it fall down.  Oh, and I don't think I got a picture of it (unless it's on the phone pics which I forgot to load), but there were some trebuchets!  Perfect to go with our studies on the medieval times this year!

Mr. Engineer hard at work.   You could rearrange the pipes and turn on and off water spiggots to see where the water would go.  And boy did Abishai get wet!  I had to twist the pipe the opposite direction because he was going to get a face full.  I knew there was a water element so I did bring some extra clothes just in case. Keeping his wet pants on him was a full time job for awhile until he forgot they were wet. 

Kid sized pin cushion thing!  You know the little ones that you can put your hand on and it pushes the dull pins though to make the outline of your hand?  My brother had one.  I think Jared might have even had one.  Anyway, the kids LOVED it!  And I was super impressed at all the details you could find from the wrinkles on her shirt to imprint of her hair!

View from the front.

Why hello Han Solo Justin!

Keturah did her face!

I watched as this guy single handed undo and redo these locks lickity split.  Nothing's going to keep things safe from this one!  These things were in a gated off area meant for the slightly younger crowd, perfect for Abishai and lots of imaginative play.

The fastest way to reset the pegs on the pincushion board!  They were like plastic straws though.  And then, Abishai kept pushing the pins back towards Jared as a cruel joke.  He was starting to get stir crazy at this point.

Peek a boo baby in the puppet theater.  This was after he bullied his way through a tower of life sized blocks.  And he did it a second time, too!  I was so embarrassed.  He plays so rough sometimes because he has to push to get his way at home and to be heard.

	Abishai escaped into his cave so I couldn't reach him.  He told me to get out.  Cool lights! This was pretty cool!  You hit the colored discs and they make different sounds like a bird or a drum or something else.  Of course Abishai needed more than one mallet and had to hit them crazy hard. Alright, who's the kid here?  Jared built a dam and the water poured out around it, not over the top or vice versa.  He spent entirely too long on this, like at last 20 minutes.  It was a good thing I was watching Abishai.  Nah, I'm glad he had fun doing it. You raised the rectangle bubble wand up and can gently blow through this sheet of bubble liquid to make a bubble or two. This one used bubbles to show how clouds are form through condensation.  Justin was seeing how many bubbles he could catch without them popping.  I think it was maybe 10. On this machine, you stretched the rope and then used a fan to blow the big bubbles!  Keturah and Justin were pros at it!  There was also a fog machine set up so you can see how that looks like going around some foam blocks. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles. The boy temprorarily moved over and organized this type of science toy.  You use the blocks in different combinations to show circuits. Electric magnet versus static magnet.  I taught Keturah something! Helping Daddy with the dam. A great view of the first floor looking towards the front from on top of the kids' play area. Pins and needles. Use air to blow through the different pipes to make different pitches. Up, up, and away!  It wasn't terribly crowded, which was nice. Even Jared did!  The weight limit was 300 lbs and both men weigh a little over 200 lbs. My turn making a butterfly with Kinex junior!  We have some of these at home, too. Marching to the beat of his own drum of course. Helping Daddy with this gigantic stack of cups!  Jared kind of took over the whole area. Yes, he used up almost all of the cups before he let Abishai knock it down.  Again, at least 20 minutes was spent on this! I was playing with this table where you build something and then make the table shake to see if yuor engineering would hold during an earthquake.  Well, this mini crate held the little bungee cords but Abishai thought it made the perfect cage for the dinosaurs that would over at the frame by frame mini movie making thing nearby.  Then he took the "baby dinosaurs" over to the "Mommy" dinosaur to show them to her.  This kid's mind blows my mind some days. The finished tower. Very active lizard wanting to escape. Ewww, cockroaches!  They eat citrus and other veggies/fruit.  Keturah and I watched them do that. I saw saw some larvae (cockroaches, not from the bee thing around the corner.)   That blue mat you see here is filled with blue water that when you walk on it, moves around in the square.  Cool sensory thing! Bob the Builder time!  Behind them is a crane that you could move around to pick up stuff or tear stuff down.  Justin built up a stack of blocks and then took another block as a wrecking ball and knocked down the whole tower one by one.  Lots of patience putting those blocks on the hook! Time for more engineering building a house!  They had nuts, bolts, washers and a simple socket wrench design. "I buildin'!" We watched this guy get fed. Lunch for cockroaches! Ta da!  A one person house!  There were more pipes behind this exhibit where you could hit the end of the open tube with a sponge mallet and it would create different tones from the different lengths of tubing. Proud builder. Then we started taking it apart and Abishai was desperate to try to put it back together!  By this time, everyone was getting super hungry. Busy working. Finished product!  All without any plans or pattern to follow! Nice! This gadget showed how energy is trasnferred from one ball to another.  The further up and hard you hit the first one, the other balls will follow. We joked that Benaiah's head makes the perfect "O" for WonderLab. Stone steps where we stopped at the western watch tower in Brown County State Park. Cool watchtower!  It of course would have been even better when it wasn't drizzly and cold out. We drove through several foggy patches in the hills.  I've noticed a lot of the trees in Indiana have bright yellow leaves.  It's hard to find the red and orange ones. I'm sure on a clear day you can see for miles. Looking through the watch tower window.  And yes, I think both Keturah and Justin noticed that you can slide weapons through there and stay pretty safe. I think this one and the northern watchtower were made more recently when the park opened 50 yrs ago.  I don't think they were here when the first settlers were. I can see in my mind's eye how this would look on a clear day.  Oh well, we tried.  Kids weren't very impressed. There's a red maple leaf, my favorite! Tree tunnels!  Oh how I miss these SO SO MUCH!  From NH, to PEI, to Michigan.  They never, ever, ever get old! So much yellow! Water droplets on the windshield and another view of the tree tunnel in Brown County State Park. Lunch in the van in our parking spot outside of the WonderLab. Trees and parking garage on the campus of Indiana University-Bloomington (main campus of IU).  This is the part where Jared said he wouldn't switch lanes so he can still say he's never been to IU.  Nothing against IU, but it's a state school that was never on his radar for school or our radar for Benaiah for school.  Who knows though with the others.  Again, nothing against it, it's just your typical party haven state school with decent sports and good degrees.  I'm sure many people would disagree with me, but, it's a state school.  Pretty though! The north gate of the Brown County State Park has a two lane covered bridge you can drive on! Cool! I totally didn't expect that!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE covered bridges and there are many in Indiana.  I just haven't had time to drive to them all.  Maybe when the kids are all grown up, lol, except, grandkids, except, ministry, except..oh, well, never mind, I'll live without the covered bridge festival and tour, lol.