THE NEWTON'S

Phoenix Science Museum with Grandma and Grandpa Newton At Rich's brother's house we took one day to go downtown and visit the Phoenix Science Museum. The kids enjoyed it and there were lots of interactive things for them to do. The little play area Angela and Rich are in said it was only for kids 4 and under. So Ashley and Alyssa played along with Angela by standing outside of the playarea and reaching over the fence! :) Alex has gotten to the age that he will just go from interactive exhibit to interactive exhibit, without needing assistance or explainations of what to do. He had a great time with all of the hands on learning they had there! Putting together a model of the heard and other organs. Rich and Alyssa spent a while figuring out this puzzle, but they did solve it! It was really neat because All of the kids were old enough to play with the interactive exhibits, probably the first time we've gone to a museum where I didn't spend part of the time tryi...

Self Guided Audio Tour We walked down through the natural opening of the cave. It was switchbacks back and forth and back and forth... and I was glad we were going down and not up. Also we kept a firm grip on the smaller kids hands... no running down the path for them! All along the tour there were numbers that you would punch into the little audio guide and it would tell you what things to look at in the area and give lots of science facts about how things are formed. This is a posed picture, but only because I didn't get the camera out in time to snap them really just sitting there contently listening to their audio tour. They really did enjoy it! :) The formations are really just amazing. My camera can't do them justice in the low light conditions we were in.

On our way out to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns. It is a beautiful example of hidden grandeurs in our earth... we spent about 6 hours there that day. We first went on a guided tour of the Kings Room, and then came back up for lunch and walked back down with the self guided audio tour. The kids probably hiked about 5 miles that day at least with all the walking, but they really didn't complain about it because there was so much to see. Kings Room Tour: The dark black marks on the rock are lantern burn marks. Early explorers of the cave would make a burn mark on the wall to help them know the path back out of the cave. Those teeny tiny stalagtites are about 80 years old! They know this because this tunnel was blasted through to connect two of the cave's rooms about 80 years ago. Imagine how old the larger stalagtites must be! Hey the rock looks like a tooth! This formation is actually called the shy elephant... because someone thought it looked like ...