This morning Mike and I got up and ran a few miles on the Green River trail right outside our hotel. It was a beautiful, sunny day outside. The weather just couldn't have been better. It smelt so fresh and clean outside and our bodies were loving being at sea level with moisture in the air. It just made us miss living in WA even more.
After feeding everyone breakfast and getting ready for the day we all headed up to the city to visit the Pacific Science Center. After getting one of the best parking spots on the street we hopped across the street to get our tickets. We ended up buying the yearly membership because it was cheaper with our military discount than buying individual day passes. With our membership we got 15 IMAX tickets and discounts to their premier IMAX movies. We spent the first part of our morning at The Art of the Brick exhibit. This was probably one of the coolest moving exhibits we have ever been to. The exhibit by artist Nathan Samaya was a collection of inspiring artwork made exclusively out of legos. We were completely amazed by how similar the lego artwork resembled the original artwork. Some of our favorites included the Great Wave off Kanazawa by Hokusai, The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, The Scream by Edvard Munch, The Thinker sculpture by Rodin, the Moai sculpture which encompassed 75,450 pieces of legos, and the Dinosaur Skeleton made of 80,020 pieces. By far one of our favorite parts inside this exhibit was the hyper-realistic art exhibition "In Pieces" by Nathan Samaya and Dean West where legos are transformed into sculptures depicting everyday moments in Dean West's modern photography. You really have to look close at the photographs to see what is clearly real and what is made out of lego. In the center of the room are the sculptured pieces made out of lego depicted in the various photographs. The red dress photograph was probably our favorite piece. We also enjoyed the portrait pieces at the end of the exhibit. Knowing how great of an artist Mike is I turned to him and told him he could totally do that. How awesome would that be to have a portrait of all our kids made out of legos? After getting through the entire exhibit we all got to write our names on a lego piece and place it on the visitors lego creation table. The kids really liked that.
After the Brick exhibit we headed over to the main part of the Pacific Science Center and went through the other exhibits. On our way back into the main part of the building Andrew rode on the high bike and the other kids spent some time in the mouse wheel before exploring some things in building 3. The kids loved the Body Works section where they raced on the stationary bikes to see how much energy they produced, tested their reaction time, and how hard they could hit with the big fair like hammer. They also enjoyed playing in the Nutrition cafe and putting the fake food on the conveyer belt. The kids probably spent the most time at the Science Playground where they got to work with motors using different inputs and outputs. The girls spent most of their time there while the boys built different creations with the KEVA blocks. It made me realize that you are never too old to play with blocks. After getting through most of the exhibits and eating our lunch outside we all enjoyed watching the National Parks documentary on the IMAX and then watching Finding Dory on the IMAX. Finding Dory was SO GOOD. It was even better watching it on that big screen.
On our way out of the Pacific Science Center we stopped to see the Seattle Space-needle. We opted to not go up in the Space-needle but just enjoyed the view from the bottom. To get a view of the entire city we drove to Beacon Hill to see the Seattle skyline. In the distance we could faintly see Mt. Rainier with all the cloud cover. It was the best view I had ever seen of Seattle and couldn't believe that we hadn't been to this viewpoint before when we lived in the area. It's a good thing we thought it was worth seeing because the traffic getting back to the freeway was such a mess. It made me grateful that I didn't live right in the middle of a big city.
Later that evening we left the kids back at the hotel and headed out to meet some of our longtime friends for dinner. It was so great to see Jen and Dave Wilcox again and to catch up with life. It felt like yesterday that we were eating dinner at their house the night before moving to Japan. That was nearly 6 years ago. Oh my how time has flown by.
On our way out of the Pacific Science Center we stopped to see the Seattle Space-needle. We opted to not go up in the Space-needle but just enjoyed the view from the bottom. To get a view of the entire city we drove to Beacon Hill to see the Seattle skyline. In the distance we could faintly see Mt. Rainier with all the cloud cover. It was the best view I had ever seen of Seattle and couldn't believe that we hadn't been to this viewpoint before when we lived in the area. It's a good thing we thought it was worth seeing because the traffic getting back to the freeway was such a mess. It made me grateful that I didn't live right in the middle of a big city.
Later that evening we left the kids back at the hotel and headed out to meet some of our longtime friends for dinner. It was so great to see Jen and Dave Wilcox again and to catch up with life. It felt like yesterday that we were eating dinner at their house the night before moving to Japan. That was nearly 6 years ago. Oh my how time has flown by.
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