Walt's Field Trip to McWane.....

Oh, the joys of being parent chaperone on the good ol' field trip.....let me tell you, trying to keep up with 6 eager field tripping boys in the McWane Science Center.....while there are 1000 other elementary age children bouncing off the walls themselves, is no task for the faint of heart.

But I survived....with all 6 of my assigned kids, in tact, also with a stop off at the ol' gift shop, even.

Walt loved the top level of McWane that now houses all these really neat train layouts. Temple had a train layout in the basement of our home in Gadsden. And he even has plans for his layout in our basement here, but we haven't finished that room yet. This spark in Walt's eyes should put a fire under Temple's rear to get in gear so the boys can work on it together. :)
Walt's favorite layout was this one that replicated a fairground. Too Cool.

Another favorite of mine and Walt's was this contraption.....I would have to google what these things are called, and do not have the time, so just look at the photos. Walt, carefully analyzes the pegs...and how they position themselves with your movement into them.

OH NO!!! Not the face. I've got two words for you, son......G.E.R.M.-C.I.T.Y !!! Seriously, if I would have had a can of lysol I would have sprayed it right in his face, eyes and all......but I didn't, so I just hid behind the camera and pretended I didn't notice that he. just. stuck. his. whole. face. directly into where MILLIONS of microbia have been deposited from the thousands of grimey field tripping hands................

I call this shot---"profile of bacteria"----
This neat writing wall was right up Walt's alley. It's actually a dark area of panels with laser light corded "pens" hanging for the kids to WRITE ON THE WALLS....because, you know, it vanishes...unlike crayola crayons, or sharpie markers! I took this with the flash on so you could see Walt drawing.
And here's a photo (without the flash) of my masterpiece---Picaso, I ain't. But this takes me right back to 7th grade, when all of my binders, notebooks and everything else was scribbled with my name and my friends' names.....swirly letters, hearts, stars...etc.

Walt's teachers even joined the fun and had a hair-lifting experience in the wind tunnel. Can you guess what Walt is doing here?

He's in the "newsroom", practicing his skills as a weatherman. Here you see him giving the national forecast.....

And as they say on the morning show we watch, "now, here's a look at what's happening in your neck of the woods".....

Oh, baby, somebody is about to get hit by the eye of the hurricane......
At least Walt can handle the pressure of a category 4 better than Geraldo Rivera.......

It just so happened that Mickey Ferguson, the weatherman for FOX-6 news out of Birmingham, was on location at McWane to do a weather segment live for the noon news. Walt didn't get on tv, but he did get to stand beside this "celebrity".....although I must say, our trusted local weatherman is actually James Spann. No offense Mickey. But thanks for the photo.

A favorite picture of mine.....Walt with one of his best friends, Ethan. They happen to be only a couple of months apart in age. I can't wait until their senior year and I get to pull out all these funphotos of them growing up together.

I saved this beauty for last.....can you find the fish in this photo? The boys were really excited about the "water" area in McWane. They saw this fish there. It blends in so with the stone bottom floor in this shallow little area of water, you can barely see it. It has camouflaged itself like it would on the ocean floor.

• What's it called? Glad you asked.....you'll never guess....it's called a "FLATFISH". Go figure. heehee. Here's a couple of facts for you from wikipedia about the flatfish, 'cause Lord knows I want you to learn something from this field trip.........Some flatfish are able to change their pigmentation to match the background, in a similar manner to a chameleon. The most obvious characteristic of the flatfish is their asymmetry, with both eyes lying on the same side of the head in the adult fish.

There, now, don't you feel smarter already? So glad you stopped by.....