A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village

Sarah trying to make a bubble go all the way around her.


Hula hoops make awesome bubbles.
The girls loved being artistic in the inventor's workshop...
Sarah and Natalie pretending in the China exhibit. Aparently, Sarah thinks Chinese people are very serious.

Last week I felt like the summer was slipping away much too quickly. There were so many things I still wanted to do. I decided to plan for a few extra fun outings before the summer was over. So last week, I took the girls to a place I've always wanted to go. A.C. Gilbert's discovery village is named after the man who invented erector sets. The whole village is dedicated to "exploration, experimentation and learning". (That's from their website - here's a link: http://www.acgilbert.org/ )

We spent the whole day playing in each area - one at a time for as long as the girls wanted. First, we played out in the huge playground maze, a gigantic spider web and gigantic slides. Then we headed inside the Victorian style houses and we found: the bubble room, the body room, a medieval stage with dress ups, an inventor's workshop, a shadow freezing room, an interactive dinosaur exhibit, a room all about life in China (which was cool to learn about with the Olympics going on there right now), a pretend grocery store and a room where the girls danced to music and watched their moving silhouettes morph on a huge screen in all kinds of psychedelic colors. We were all exhausted by the end of the day and agreed it was a fun adventure.

On the way home, we picked up Taco Bell and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We let the girls stay up late to watch in their jammies. We were in awe of the whole thing - it was so incredibly awesome! It was fun to hear Sarah's exclamations - she is so enthusiastic and really appreciated the huge numbers of performers, their precision in choreography, the costumes and special effects and, of course, the out of this world fireworks. Natalie and Angela loved the fireworks and the part when the little girl sang with all the kids dressed in different costumes.

What a fun and memorable day.