Birthday Surprise & Birthday Trip

First, Birthday Surprise:

Look at this little gadget you can get for a dollar at the Dollar Tree:


It has great powers, and can even shed light on deep mysteries:


It is a pregnancy test.

And mine showed positive. +.

Ca-ray-zy.

So...that is the Birthday Surprise: There's going to be another Birthday! Lord willing, Tolleson kid #4 should arrive sometime around the middle of October.

God is so good, and was gentle in preparing our hearts for this surprise. We had talked several months back about the value of large families. While that's a nice thing to talk about, we were NOT about to attempt to change our family dynamics. But I think we did offer the idea up to God, and decided to trust Him for whatever is best for our family. So, our Birthday Surprise was not quite as shocking as it could have been.

We told the boys, and they are excited. Er, maybe pleased would be a better word. There's really not too much excitement, but there is happy acceptance. That'll do.

And now, on to the Birthday Trip:

We had a fun time on Trevor's Birthday trip. Lately we have given them the choice to either have a party and invite friends, or take a family trip to somewhere fun. This is the first time that any of the boys has chosen a trip, and we were all happy to help him celebrate!

Last week, we headed up to Huntsville AL to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Each time we head up to NE for a visit, we pass this huge rocket by the interstate, and the kids ALWAYS want to stop. And we never do. So they've had this rocket museum on their minds for quite a while.



It was a VERY chilly morning when we showed up at the museum. We thought to ourselves well, at least we'll be inside!

Perhaps a little more research on my part would have been helpful...but, what can ya do? Live and learn, I guess.

A lot of the museum WAS inside, thankfully. We started out in a HUGE room with a Saturn V rocket...for all those who are as ignorant as I am, that's the kind of huge rocket that took up the Apollo pods. Humongous.

The kids got to sit in a real simulator that the astronauts used...


That was really cool. They were laying down in there, and could hardly reach the switches.

We saw the Apollo 16 Capsule that really came back to earth. It was super charred on the bottom, and was amazing to see.

There were several interactive exhibits. One let you try on some Space Suit gloves, and try to lift and twist things...


We got to see a demonstration about rocket fuel...


After checking out the rocket room, we braced ourselves for the chilly exhibits outside.

There was a space station walk-through that was interesting, and a "mock" moon...


Tim, Trevor and Samuel went on a G-Force simulator that spun them around to 6 Gs. I couldn't go, since I'm pregnant (and after my weak stomach at Universal this Christmas, I was glad to have an excuse to not go), and William was all too happy to keep me company. Samuel and Trevor liked it so much they rode it twice in a row.


The traveling exhibit (that we had heard raves about--once it was Star Wars, and then the Chronicles of Narnia) turned out to be CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. We decided to NOT check that out. That was another point where research would have been helpful. Oh well!

There was a little bit more to see inside another building, and then we were done by lunchtime. We went to Bojangles for lunch and had some of their tasty sweet biscuits. Then we decided to check out Sci-Quest.

(A HUGE bonus was that we got into BOTH the Rocket museum AND Sci-quest for FREE!!! We used our McWane's family pass! What a DEAL! I bought that thing for $90, which paid for itself during our week in Bham. Then, we saved the $85 it would have cost to go to the rocket center, and were also able to go to Sci-Quest...which we totally wouldn't have done without that pass. That admission would have been $43.50. Awesome!)

Sci-Quest was similar to the McWane's Center...but on a smaller scale. We had the place nearly to ourselves, and spent several hours moving from one fun thing to another. It was clean and well run.

Here's a few pictures:

Playing with "floating" balls...


Making HUGE soap bubbles...


Sculpting with magnetic sand...


After that, we were worn out, and headed back to our hotel and swam.

William:


Samuel: (by the way...how 'bout his peace sign! We crack up about it. He looks like he's been hanging around some Japanese friends. He says that the little alien from "the Flight of the Navigator" does it. How can he remember that??? He says we watched it last summer in Miles's camper. Wow.)


Trevor: (not sure you're supposed to do that in a hotel pool...)


Then, up to the room to eat Papa Johns, and watch the only good movie on TV, BOLT. We like that one. Trevor went to bed one happy camper. (especially happy since we were in the top floor of our super-tall-4-story-hotel.)


Well...that's the trip.

Here's a few more pictures from Trev's party at Sharon's:


Here's what I go through almost every time I try to take a picture of Trevor:






Opening presents...




Look at the flames!! 9 years old!


And, Lastly, Here's some pictures of Tim's latest creations:





This is Samuel trying to describe why it's cool to use "old-fashioned" things, like the old wood in these racks:




And now I'm tuckered out! I've got to go find something to put in my pregnant little tummy to make myself feel a little better. My old friend, hunger, has turned into my enemy...and I need to go make peace!