SEAN AND JENI

My little sister Kyla had a business conference to attend in Philadelphia in July. I hadn't seen her in 2 1/2 years! So the kiddos and I headed down to say hi and visit for a little while between her meetings. We ate breakfast at a fancy shmancy place and her boss treated. It was very nice. Then we headed over the the Franklin Institute which is a kid's science museum in Philly.

Kyla and me and the kids (yes I'm one of the shortest in my family)

The kids loved spending time with Aunt Kyla

and she even got a picture of me and kids. There was this enormous train in the train museum. Matthew was a little wary

Here he is telling me he prefers little trains

The kids sat in a real jet

and then tried not to get blown away in the wind room

Even Aunt Kyla tried her hand at seeing how wind effects wings

Sara loved having her Aunt show her how to do things. Here they are making whirligigs

In the electricity room Sara and Matthew learned how to complete a circuit

Then we moved on to paper making from recycled paper. First you scoop up some wet paper bits

then you sponge up some of the excess water

then you press it

and there you have it! All that's left is drying

Lily loved climbing through the giant veins in the heart section

Most of the time at the museum this is what Lily found the most amusing - running as fast as she could so that either I or Kyla would chase her

They had a huge model of the heart that you could walk through just as a red blood cell passes through a real heart. It takes you up and down and around all the chambers. The kids loved it. I think we went through 10 times!

Aunt Kyla also helped the kids with simple machines

We also went to the space section where Sara picked out her favorite space suit because it was "cool"

and Aunt Kyla helped Lily understand some complex space concepts.


We had such a fun time and we hope Aunt Kyla will visit again soon!