Spring Break 2007 - Cincinnati

Right after getting back from the water park, we did some laundry, got a good night's sleep and headed down to Cincinnati. We have good friends from medical school that live down there - Dawn and Chris and their kids Rachel and Ben. Dawn introduced Alex to a small harp on a wood base that had room underneath for a paper song sheet that showed him which notes to play in what order. Rachel showed us her blankets she's been making for girl scouts, including the Cars blanket she made for the boys. That night, after getting the kids to bed, Dawn and Chris introduced us to a video game for the Playstation 2 called Guitar Hero. Instead of a joystick, you control the game with a guitar-shaped controller. You have to "strum" it and finger buttons on the neck in time with the music. It's hard to describe, but you can watch a random 8-year-old do it here playing "Freebird". Out of all of us, Dawn was the best. She plays the flute and I think that this helps her, but nevertheless she put Chris and I to shame.The next day we went to the Cincinnati Children's museum which has several fun and educational things for kids to try. Alex loaded foam rubber rocks into a crane bucket and later worked the crane to drop them into the yellow dump truck you see behind him. They shot plastic balls across a room with jets of air and other cranes. They played in a pretend vet's office, a diner, and a construction site.
They also had a water area like they do at COSI which of course they loved. Their favorite part had to be the forest with logs you could crawl into and climb up into tunnels, mazes and bridges. It had a real aquarium that contained some bass and a Lucite tunnel that you could use to crawl into the middle of the aquarium for an eye to eye view of the fish.
That night we had dinner at the Iron Chef restaurant which had the chef prepare and serve your food from a grill right at your table. We loved it, but especially the kids. Alex tried white rice for the first time and like it. The chef tried to coax him into trying some vegetables, but he would have none of it.

One of the kids favorite parts were the fire tricks he did, like build a volcano out of onions and caused it to erupt. We'll be talking about this around here for a while.