Star Wars Exhibit at the Indiana State Museum

In July, the kids & I went up to Indiana for a week to help my father go through some of Mom's stuff. The traveling Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit was at the Indiana State Museum while we were in town. We missed it when it came to Atlanta a few years ago, so I took James & Hannah to see it. Chris' older brother met us there with his family and so did our friends from Georgia who were also in Indy visiting family.

There were lots of real movie props on display.

There were also lots of hands-on type activities. Here is Hannah on a hovercraft.

Hannah & her cousin Daniel building some kind of lego vehicle.

It was fun seeing the costumes!

Our Georgia friends who were in Indy while we were there.

James and Ryan having fun.

 

 Now that James has his learners permit, he's in the market for some transportation!

Hannah, James, & Darth Vader

The pendulum is something I always associate with the State Museum.

James is standing next to an old WFBM tv camera. My grandfather used to be one of the camera men for WFBM "back in the day". He actually used that camera to film the first broadcast of the Indianapolis 500.

James & Hannah with their cousins outside the museum.

A great day at the museum!

Spring Break

I've gotten behind again!

Anyway.......our original plan for Spring Break 2013 was to drive up to Indiana and visit all the grandparents. With the death of my father-in-law the week before, we changed our plans. The kids wanted to stay at home, so we had a little "Stay-Cation".


We went to the Tellus Science Museum on Monday. James had been a couple of times on middle school field trips, but Hannah had never been before.

 

On Tuesday, Hannah & I went to Six Flags. We met up with some friends of hers. James opted to stay home.

We went and saw the movie Oz on Wednesday. James did go see the movie with us, he just didn't want to be in the picture.

We stayed home on Thursday. Hannah went back to Six Flags on Friday with her friends. It was a nice and fairly uneventful spring break. Not much longer until summer vacation!!!!

Anne Frank Exhibit

We were looking for something *free* to do recently. We recalled seeing signs for the Anne Frank Exhibit while having lunch with Chris in Sandy Springs. Admission was free, so we decided to check it out.

The Anne Frank Exhibit is in a strip mall in Sandy Springs. It's not very big, but they've done a great job with the space they have.

We started our tour by watching a 28 minute video titled "The Short Life of Anne Frank". The movie was really good. It showed lots of live footage from World War II and the holocaust. It even had the only known footage of Anne Frank. The movie was informative and quite interesting.

After the video, we toured the exhibit. It is primarily an exhibit of photographs.

Hannah enjoyed looking at this model of the annex where Anne & her family hid.

This was an accurate mock up of Anne's room.

Here's a close up of what her desk looked like with a copy of the famous diary with the plaid cover.

At the end of the exhibit, there were these rolled up pieces of paper stuck in a wood board. The sign said that there were phrases and sentences from Anne's diary on each one and for you to take one as a reminder of your visit.

Here's what Hannah's paper said.

There was a donation box near the entrance. If you gave a $10 donation, you were given a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank. Now Hannah has her own copy.

We spent about an hour at the exhibit and that included the 28 minute video. The exhibit led to some good conversations during lunch afterwards.

World of Coca-Cola

Last spring break, I had planned to take the kids to World of Coke. On the day we were planning to go, we decided that we didn't feel like going. So we postponed our outing until summer. Then school started and we still hadn't made it there.

Then this past Labor Day weekend, we had a late, late, late football game/marching performance on Friday night. James didn't get released to go home until after 1:30 am. By the time we got home, it was almost 2am. Since it was Labor Day weekend, we had plans to go to the DragonCon parade. Because we all were super tired, we decided to skip the parade for the first time in several years.

So where does the World of Coke come into play? Well, by the time Sunday had arrived and we were feeling better rested, we decided that we would go to World of Coke. It was a destination that we knew would not garner any complaints from either of the kids.

I must also apologize for the picture quality. Our camera recently broke and I was limited to taking pics on my phone. My phone takes okay pictures, but because of the size, it's harder for me to tell when things are not clear. So I don't always know when to reshoot a picture. The husband is investigating new cameras for me.

Some Coca-Cola memorabilia.

Hannah wishing she was getting a real coke!

James checking out some of the equipment.

James & Hannah posing for me.

These are all Olympic torches that have been sponsored by Coca-Cola.

James and Hannah got to hold a torch from the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games.

And here they are holding a 2012 Olympic torch.

 Some "Coke" artwork.

Part of the family posing with the Coca Cola Polar Bear. James didn't want to be in the picture. The Polar Bear was amused by Hannah's tank top. He kept pointing at the Panda Bear.

Hannah stands in front of the vault where the formula for Coca Cola is supposedly kept.

Then of course, there's the tasting room.

 

 

There were lots of  Coke products to try. Some better than others - we knew from our last trip not to get try the Beverly soda from Italy. 

There were several of the Coca Cola Freestyle machines for tasting.

And of course, plenty of Coke.

On the way out we each got our own little Coca Cola bottle.

While we were downtown, we did get to see many costumed people from DragonCon wandering around. Maybe we'll make it back to DragonCon next year.