Michelle and I had made a plan to go to the Exploratorium in the city on Friday.  Stuart had added the 3rd row in his SUV, so I could drive the boys up to meet Michelle, Mckayla and Marcus, and give them a ride to the city together.  On the way up, the kids were excited to be in the 2nd and 3rd rows, but over time, they grew quieter.  Logan was falling asleep, Marcus complained about being carsick, and Mckayla was reading.  Connor looked tired and was complaining being hot.  Later he said he was getting carsick.  Finally we arrived at the piers but met with a little bit of traffic.  By then the kids all voted to eat first, so after we parked, we walked over to the ferry building for lunch.  Our boys picked tacos, so most of us got our food and ate at the outdoor seating from the Mexican restaurant.  After we all fueled up, we made our way back toward Pier 15 to the Exploratorium.  It took the four kids forever to walk this short distance since they were playing around with each other.

   Finally we were inside the huge exhibit halls and there were tons of people.  The first thing we saw was a “toilet” water fountain, and the kids thought it was funny watching other people drinking from it.  Connor did not hesitate to go up to take a drink while Logan and I did not want anything to do with it.  There were so many exhibits; the four kids mostly hung together as a group or paired up to play.  Mckayla and Marcus were good showing our boys how to use some of the games as they were familiar with them.  The kids enjoyed some exhibits so much that they would stay there for awhile, so Michelle and I would just chat while they played.  Two hours later, the kids started to ask to leave and my legs were tired by then, so we began our trek to the entrance.  But the kids continued to play at some exhibits and it took at least 30 minutes before we were out the door.  Next we had a snack at the cafe; we all enjoyed some tea, coffee, cocoa and cookies or brownie.  We all had a good time there.  On the drive back to the Kao’s house, the kids continued to play with one and other that they were so loud so Michelle and I had to quiet them sometimes so we could talk on our own.

     As we arrived to their house, Stuart was already there as we had planned to have dinner together with Ted too.  Since the kids were off to play in the house immediately, we decided to have food delivered to avoid leaving the house.  It was a very pleasant and relaxing evening for us, and the kids definitely enjoyed the extra hours to play with each other.  We finally left their house at 8:30pm; this was a long fun day.