Grandma McMullin's visit - Week 1

Sean's mom flew out to visit this week.  We have done a variety of outings, in between rain storms.

Sylvia and her friend appreciate the fact that Grandma is staying in a motel with a pool.  There was much splashing this week.

 Here is Grandma with her two splashing mermaids.

   We also drove to Milwaukee to visit the museums.  Asher really enjoys playing Scrabble, so Grandma showed him some of the tricks of the trade as they drove in the car.  The played on her ipad the whole way. She is the ultimate Scrabble-Master, but Asher aspires someday to win.

  At the Discovery World Science Museum, Sylvia found out her arms are finally long enough to reach into the pools and pet the sturgeons swimming by.  The fish swim in loops, and it is a fun game to see if you can reach in quick enough to stroke their 2 foot long bodies as they cruise by.

Sylvia was also brave enough to try the "bed of nails" experiement.  You lay down on a sheet of plexi-glass, then they raise nails up, so you are totally laying on a bed of nails.  She said it felt "weird".  Sean and I were not brave enough to try it.

Sylvia also enjoyed making lots of silly faces in the hundreds of mirrors at one exhibit.  It was fun to see what she gravitated towards.

   The museum was full  of crazy public school kids on field trips, so lunchtime was looking to be more of the same loud chaos we had been trying to steer clear of all morning.  Liz discovered the top floor of the aquarium, the banquet room.  We asked the museum director for permission to haul our cooler up the elevator and eat there.  It was very posh, and quiet.  We ate our bagels and pudding cups surrounded by unexpected elegance.

The view was very pretty from the banquet room. You could see downtown Milwaukee and out across lake Michigan.   It had a wrap around balcony that you had to be careful not to get blown off.

In the afternoon we stopped at the Milwaukee Public Museum.  The butterfly exhibit is one of Sylvia's all time favorite places.   Liz had a butterfly that stayed on her shoulder most of the time.

Asher was fabulous with helping Sylvia catch and hold some of the butterflies.

Mattias won the prize for attracting the largest butterfly of the afternoon.

Noel has been getting a lot of driving practice in.  She is almost finished with her 50 hours, and will be taking her driving test next month.  She is looks very grown up sitting in a car for some reason.

    
     Finishing out the week, we journeyed a half hour down to Evansville, WI.  The high school there put on the musical "The Wizard of Oz" this weekend.  Since they don't have a strings program, they borrowed some of Stoughton's orchestra students.  Asher has been going with some friends down to practice in the evenings after tennis practice for the last two weeks.   The music was great, the show was amazing.

Not only did he meet other musicians from Evansville, but he made friends with the actors as well.  Here is Asher with the star of the show, Dorothy.   Although, Sylvia thinks the real star of the show was Toto. - Who can argue with that?