Happy New Year to everyone. We are excited about the year 2011, even if we keep forgetting to write the correct date on our checks and everything. I hope that everyone had a great celebration and was able to stay all the way up until midnight.

We were lucky and were able to make it to Vancouver for the New Year. Will has family living there and almost everyone decided to come visit. So it was really fun seeing them. Some of Will's siblings hadn't met Whitney, so it was a nice get-together for a couple of days. Thank you Ruth and Dana for letting us sleep in your apartment.

This is Whitney looking in a mirror at the OMSI center. Her cousin Anna is standing in the background. The OMSI is this really cool science museum in Portland that is huge. And it is really kid friendly. Whitney loved it and so did Will and I. This post is going to be based on just our trip to the museum because we took a ton of pictures and had to break it up. So I hope you want to look at some pictures.



Whitney didn't like wearing the goggles, which were a requirement in the special chemistry lab. So she just stayed outside. But now we can say that we have seen her in goggles, really bright goggles.



This is a rock from the moon. How cool is that? I was able to see one when I was younger when my family traveled to the Smithsonian Center in Washington D.C. But now Will and Whitney were able to see one. I think that would be so cool to just be able to feel it and see if it feels different than our rocks on earth.



There were lots of things for kids to touch. We let Whitney touch these "volcanoes", but we couldn't get a very good picture because of the funny light. Oh well.



There was one section strictly for children six and under and in that section was a small spot only for infants. We let Whitney play in the little ball pit that was being shared by a couple other babies. I never knew how much Whitney likes balls; she didn't want to leave.



And I got to ride a segway. I have always wanted to ride one since seeing them on some movie. You control the segway with your feet and it was awesome. It was a cool way to get around. Unfortunately, I asked the guy and he said that they cost roughly 5000 dollars and we don't have that kind of spare change lying around. But it was still fun.



One of my favorite exhibits was the earthquake house. I have never been in an earthquake before and this was a simulation of a 7 earthquake. Whitney didn't seem to care about the shaking at all, she was just jumping around and having a good time.



...and take off. Whitney went into a spaceship. You were technically suppose to sit in it upside down, but that seemed a little too cruel for our little baby.



This is a little hard to tell, but Will and Whitney are giving the weather forecast. They were actually standing in front of a green screen and pointing to the wall, but isn't that what real forecasters do anyway? It was cute watching them predict rain and snow and all that.



Whitney was exhausted after a long day at the museum. I think everyone was pretty ready to call it quits. It was a really fun place and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes science.
We have more pictures from our trip. But I have to go home and make dinner. Maybe one day we will have the internet at our home and we won't have to go to the library to update our blog. We will try to post some more family pictures in a couple of days.