Fun with our cousins!

The boys had no school today so we spent a fun day with our cousins! First we went to Odyssey 1 in Tacoma so that everyone could play and work out some of their energy! We were joined by a classmate of Evan's. His name is Nathan. Nathan and Evan have become good friends and they play together with Ethan almost everyday after school. Nathan also brought a friend with him. So in total there were 8 kids! Evan's other classmate, Michael was going to join us too but he ended up not coming. Incidentally, Michael moved in to the area well after the school year started and he and Evan and took to each other right away. Imagine everyone's surprise when they discovered that they were also in the same primary class!




The kids played HARD at Odyssey. Then we enjoyed some lunch and said goodbye to our friends. Our group headed over to the Washington State History Museum, which was open all day for free! We were excited to find a free activity. We got lucky and found parking right next to the museum and then walked over to the entrance. I had no idea just how big the place was. There were FIVE STORIES to explore! It was crowded of course. Not only was it a free day, but it was also the MLK holiday and they had a lot of activities going on surrounding that. We didn't stay very long. It's hard to keep the attention of 6 children when they range in age so greatly. But that was the main reason I wanted to go on a free day.

The kids got to see a very cool train exhibit. We got lucky because that exhibit, which has been there since April of last year, will be leaving on the 24th of this month.



They also got to dress up in period clothing and had a lot of fun with that. They looked so cute! Unfortunately, they refused to pose for a group shot, so this is what we got. No flash photography allowed so it was hard to get pictures that were well lit but not blurry (the joys of moving bodies!)


When we were done in the museum, our plan was to head back to the car and go home. But a couple of the kids had other ideas. Ethan suggested we take a nice walk and Samantha proclaimed that she really wanted to go on a trolley ride. No problem. We still had an hour and a half left on our parking tag (we had to purchase a minimum of 3 hours). As an added bonus, I had heard that the downtown Tacoma trolley was free. It goes a really short distance, from the theater district over to the Tacoma Dome and back. So we hopped on at Union Station and took the ride. The kids LOVED it!


And here are some pictures of the beauty of downtown Tacoma: