Chattanooga Post #3

Our next stop was the Imagination Museum! It was a great place that we had seen, but never actually gone to before. It will be a mainstay in our trips to the city for as long as our boys are the right age to enjoy it! It was great!

Right when you enter in the place there is a huge water play area, similar to the one at The McWane Center, but bigger. And then above that(and I mean way above) was a huge playground. And guess what! Every child had to be accompanied by an adult so we got to go in too! It was a blast from the past! And you could go up and up and up really high in the different tunnels and rope ladders. Even I loved it!

Charlie was having a good time splashing in the water because this was really the first thing he had gotten to do all day!

And, mom, there is finally a picture of me! Which I personally am uncomfortable looking at. Why is that? Oh well, at least it'll be proof to the boys one day, that yes, Mommy was there, even though it looks like dad's the one that gets to do all of the cool stuff!

Charlie got himself all wet splashing around...and I caught a cramp from staying bent down that long, but that is neither here nor there!




The last time we went to Chattanooga, Huett was almost three. Sam was a little over one and a half, and these two women had a random face-painting booth set up outside the aquarium. Huett normally did not have anything to do with strangers, but to our surprise he really wanted to get his baby face painted. At first they said he was too young, but after some convincing from Huett's aunt Shell, they agreed. We watched with bated breath as he was as still as a rock the entire time she painted his face. It was one of those cool entire face masks of face paint. He was too cute. Anyway, I tell you all of this to explain to you that ever since that trip, Huett equates the city of Chattanooga to the capital of face painting! On our way down he mentioned getting his face painted, and I told him we would try but I couldn't promise him anything. On our first day at Ruby Falls, I convinced him that no one would be painting faces because it was raining, and that seemed to satisfy him. Well, when we woke up with the sun on Wednesday, I don't think two minutes passed where this conversation didn't take place:

Huett:"Mommy (or daddy)"

Us: "What?"

Huett: "I really want to get my face painted."

Us: "We know Huett. And we promise if we find a place with face painting we will definitely stop and get yours painted."

Huett: "But it's not raining today"

Us: "We know, but the face painters might not be working today."

all while praying someone somewhere would be painting faces. I was even pondering whether or not I had anything I could use to do a makeshift face painting.
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Finally, Mikey promised him that even if we didn't find "the face-paint" lady, we would stop and buy some paint and do it ourselves.

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Imagine our surprise and relief when we happened upon a face-painting table inside the museum. Its intent was to allow the kids to paint their own faces with these little face painting crayons, however, I know Huett wouldn't have been satisfied with that. He wanted to be the green goblin, and this was the best that I could do! You would've thought he was painted like an alien from Avatar from the way he acted! Tantrum averted! And of course, to be like his big brother, Sam opted to be the Blue Goblin. I was so glad that we were able to get this taken care of and restore Huett's faith in the face painting mecca that is Chattanooga. And to not be circling the city looking for face paint or a Halloween store.

Once the face paint was taken care of, we ran into the trifecta of entertainment for my three sons. It's like the museum curator knew we were coming and set this particular corner of the museum up just for us. Sam is super basketball-obsessed. He shoots all day long at home and anywhere else he can find a goal.. he's really good at it too. Anyway they had this basketball goal with an air jet below it and when you threw the ball into the hoop just right, it would float. That kept him occupied for at least forty-five minutes.

Well, this exhibit was titled "Air in Motion" Ever since Huett was old enough to know the difference, we've had to drive through the second window at the bank because he loves to see the tube go from our car back inside the bank. Right next to Sam's basketball goal was a tube system. Mikey sat on one side, and Huett on the other, and they would shoot it back and forth! You could send little messages and stuff inside the tube.

He would run over to see if it had landed and he'd watch it shoot through the tube!

This is the tube you could watch it shoot through, and directly below this is where Sam's basketball goal sat!
Meanwhile, Charlie and I sat at one of the booths right next to all of that where he played with one of the puzzles they had sitting there. He also took a bottle while his brothers played, and I relaxed!

They had all sorts of dress up areas and this one was set up like a doctor's office, complete with check-in counter, ace bandages exam table, and pretend everything!

Huett wasn't really sure what to think about the x-rays. I explained it to him and I could see his wheels turning but I think it was still over his head!

Paging Dr. Hill. That has a nice ring to it!
It looks like he's about to deliver some bad news!

They had random people placed throughout the museum with different animals! Sam actually petted the snake! I was surprised. Huett didn't.

They had this huge area of like play-kitchen, play garage, tree house, play school. Inside there was a toddler and infant area. It was just perfect for Charlie and he sat there for a while as his brothers played.

"Get outta my dreams. Get into my car"

There was a whole dinosaur/fossil/archaeological section too. It had a sandpit for dusting for fossils, dress-up like a dinosaur or an explorer, and a dinosaur egg nest. Too cool! How do you get a job designing these exhibits? That's what I want to know.

RRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

Complete with dino-tail.

When you put your fingers on this hand print, it picked up your heart rate and the drum beat to your pulse. Look at Sam's little hands on top of Mikey's! So sweet!

They had a whole pretend garden complete with "seeds", "veggies", "apple trees", "orange trees", "blueberries" for picking, and a "farmer's market" to sell them at!

They had a whole campground set up with tent, cave, pretend fire.

Before we left, I had to beg Mikey to try and fit into this kayak. He wasn't even close!

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As I think you can tell from these pictures, this place was right up their alley. Because we went in the afternoon, we were almost the only people there. All the school groups had come and gone that morning!

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One more stop before our adventures come to an end! Pictures coming soon!