Memorial Day weekend

For Memorial Day weekend, my parents were able to visit us again.  Since we'd pretty much seen all that San Marcos has to offer, we spent a day in San Antonio (about 45 min. south of us).  We walked along the river, eat out at Chili's (above), looked at a bunch of different arts and crafts shops and stalls, and ended the day visiting the Witte Museum of Natural History and Science.  It was a really nice weekend together and chance to get out of the house.

The Riverwalk in San Antonio

(Danny and I look like my mom's secret service escort, lol).

San Antonio has quite a number of beautiful architecture around the historic downtown.

(... pretty fountains, must take pictures, haha)

Some of the art we saw was definitely... unique, to say the least, like these metal yard art donkeys.

... or the brightly colored flying pigs.

Some of the paintings were really strange, but many of them were quite beautiful with some very stunning watercolor paintings.

This particular series of artwork was fun to look at.

... it was really hot that day though, and right about here, I was just so dehydrated and regretting not bringing any water, when right around the corner, some guys were giving away ice cold bottles of water to visitors. yay for little blessings!

... this reminded me of Italy, even though it's in spanish.

The Witte Museum

It wasn't very large of a museum but it had some really nice pieces, like this giant Triceratops skeleton.

This was one of the natural history exhibits.  When I first looked at it, I thought I saw maybe four or five animals, but then as they lit each animal one by one and told you a little about it, I realized there were over two dozen different animals in the small enclosure.  pretty cool, no?

They had this exhibit of trains of these huge ornate dresses, each representing something from the area from where the model came.  I can't imagine how long it took to make these gowns, or worse yet, how heavy they must be to wear with all the decorations on them.

... I really liked this one on the right, supposed to be representing stained glass windows of a cathedral.

We didn't get a lot of time in the science part of the museum (we got there pretty late), but what we did see was pretty fun and very interactive.  It would've been really good for kids.

... attempts at family pictures... we're not exactly the most photogenic though...

Thanks for visiting us! :)

Science Expo, pt 3

Moving on to the Chemistry Department! (... do we look tired yet?)

They had lots of little mini-experiments all shoved into one laboratory, but they were really kid friendly too.  This one showed water cyclones in soda bottles.

Here, Race learned about water tension using canning jars.

This experiment taught about the difference in water pressure.  Each soda bottle had little vials inside with varying amount of pressure so that when the bottle was squeezed, the vials sunk, and when let go, they floated.  Plus, this one gets points for creativity - they decorated the vials to look like a little diver and a ballerina.

We're making a connection! ha.ha. ha. -_- This particular one was about making or breaking electrical currents, so when we weren't touching, the current to the ball was broken and the light wouldn't turn off.

... I think this was about wind tunnels? maybe??

... another kinda lame one, making sticky bubbles out of ... something... kinda slow and they didn't really say much.

Learning about density using diet and regular cokes, and then wrapping them in foil to decrease the density.

... can't recall the "lesson" to be learned, but basically it was poking long skewers into balloons without them popping.

Afterwards, relaxing and letting Danny spend some "quality" time with the nephews...

... or more accurately, becoming a human jungle gym, lol.

Science Expo, pt 2

More physics fun outdoors!  Race got to try driving a segway... a little nervous at first.

... but soon enough was cruising like a pro... or at least, as well as any kindergartner can.

We heard some explosions, so of course all the boys wanted to check it out. ... prepping a big barrel with water and the liquid nitrogren...

and BOOM! huge water gyser at least three stories high.  the boys were practically drooling, lol.

more liquid nitrogen fun, this time with raquetballs and flowers.

in goes the carnation...

... looks okay...

... but the frozen flower crumbled at the slightest touch.

The frozen raquetballs created quite the show...

... as the once bouncy and rubber balls now shatter when thrown on the ground.

Race had fun (and a lot of exercise) playing with the trebuchets.

... there it goes...

they made all the little kids run after the balls right after launching them.

... and to think, the kids thought that this was just having fun, not just bringing the balls back so the college students wouldn't have to get them, haha.