Busy......

The past two weeks have been really pretty busy. We did Coop last tuesday and then on wednesday went to the White River Valley Museum in Auburn. It is a small museum, but very interesting.
It describes the founding of Auburn and the different people and events that shaped the city. They had a life size replica of a cabose and so of course that was the childrens favorite thing!! Here also they had a game for the children in which they were given a bookmark with a picture of a significant person and an "interview" of them. The children had to look at the displays until they found "their person".
Thursday we went to Soundbridge which is a musical experience for children. They took a small group class on beat and rythm ( ok so how do you spell that word, I'll have to look it up later). Then, they went into another area that had all the musical instruments that they could play and get aquainted with. The children really enjoyed it.
From there we went to the Pacific Science Center to meet Laurie and her children. The new exhibit "grossology" was opened and we learned more than I ever wanted to about the "impolite science of the human body".
We then went to Red Robin (our favorite dinner place) and met daddy there and then headed to the flight museum. There is always a ton to see here, and daddy thought it was about time that we got a membership instead of just going on the free night. So now we will be there a lot more often.
The kids were all not feeling good so we called a sick day on friday.
Daddy left for San Fransisco on Monday and we took Nana back to grossology, we also saw an Imax film of the human body. The film was very well done, but again somewhat more than I wanted to know.
At the science center we watched a presentation on Combustion and the different elements required for combustion and the different fuels, complete with explosions of different sorts.
At lunch we happened to be near the Seattle Tram station and the children have never ridden on the sky tram so I thought it would be fun to take them. While on the tram we heard them say that Pike Place Market was not far from one of the stops so this began our trek through Seattle to go to the market.
Pike Place is a very interesting old-fashioned market where people hand make things and set up booths to sell them, they also have flower vendors, fish vendors and vegetable vendors. Luckily since it was in the middle of a school day there were not very many tourists which gave us a chance to really look at things and talk to the vendors. One of them was making jewelry with designs painted on them out of rocks. He explained that he was attempting to make miniatures of art that is indeginous to the Pacific Northwest. So he talked about that art for awhile and then showed the children how the rock was prepared, and designed and then he sent them off with a rock of their own to make something out of.
Farther down there was a lady selling bee products and she had jars of bee comb and honey "natures candy". We had just finished reading "Sign of the beaver" as a family and are halfway through "Birchbark house" so this gave them a chance to taste some of the things the natives enjoyed and talk about the differences between this and modern candy.
Tuesday was back at Coop and then mom got sick, sick, sick..... So I called in a sick day and stayed in bed all day.
We have started on a disabilities unit and the children and matt are taking sign language classes. We also watch sign language videos and peruse books on baby sign. The children are excited about the prospect of Sariah learning to communicate with signing before she an talk.
So, that was our week.
It got me to thinking though. I feel bad that the kids and I get to run around having fun all the time, while Matt has to work and often misses out on the great experiences we have. I am so grateful to him for being such a great provider and for letting the kids and I learn by having fun, even if he doesn't get to join in. He will probably never know how much that sacrifice means to me.