The Science Center Formerly Known As COSI Toledo.

Yesterday's museum adventure was to Imagination Station in Toledo. This great little science center has been closed for a while-until the residents of Lucas County voted to support their museum last Election Day.

Imagination Station was a great day for all of us. All 3 boys found activities to keep them busy and involved. They currently have a travelling exhibit, CIRCUS!, from the Ontario Science Centre. Definitely go before this leaves-it was GREAT! There is a high wire you can walk on, a stunt area, all kinds of costumes to try on and about 15 other hands-on exhibits. There was a lot of circus history and old photos. The exhibit is in English and Francais. (I tried reading only the French, but was never taught circus vocab in college!)TIP:If you do go to Imagination Station, go early and hit the CIRCUS! exhibit first before the lines get long!

Brendan on the high wire:



Brett doing acrobatics (he's afraid of heights and really didn't like this once he got up there, though):


Bryce had an absolute BLAST running around and touching everything. It's hard to say what was his favorite. He loved watching the tennis ball launcher, which uses a bowling ball to shoot a tennis ball up about 20 feet. He also LOVED the preschool space and ran all over in there. He really took a shine to the giant keyboard and ran up and down and up and down. He's not heavy enough to make the keys light up and they only played a note if he jumped on the keys with both feet. That didn't stop him.


Brendan on BOYO! a cool flywheel gizmo that works like a yo-yo to bounce you up and down:


I think the older boys' most favorite new exhibit was the hurricane wind simulator. It simulates gale force, tropcial storm force and Category 1 force winds. VERY cool. I refused to go in-I spent too much time on my hair to ruin it!



After several hours and a promise to come back (it only cost us $1 w/our local science center membership!), we headed over to Tony Packo's for lunch. Tony Packo's is a hot dog place made famous on MASH by Jamie Farr who is from Toledo and who's character, Klinger, is also from Toledo. I'd been last year and have wanted to take the family there since I went. As they don't serve anything with eggs AND there are not and desserts with peanuts, it seemed safe enough to take Bryce.

It was great. Fast service, great food and everybody was happy. Brendan has developed a new love of spicy foods and he really liked Tony Packo's spicy fried dill pickles, the chicken chili, and of course-the hot dog! Brett loved his mini-corn dogs. Bryce ate just about an entire order of french fries all by himself! He did great considering he's not been in a restaurant (I'm not counting our trek to McD's!) in over 1 year.

It was a great (busy!) staycation day for us. The boys want to go back for more Tony Packo's and Imagination Station. I'm thinking maybe over their Christmas break. I'll have recooperated by then. Hopefully.