In Casa de Holt, the Summer of Adventures rages on. With two weeks left to go, we're trying our very best to make some fun memories and maximize our summer fun. Some of our adventures are pretty commonplace and have happened before like trips to the Zoo or even today's trip to Chiefs Training Camp. However, there are lots of new adventures to be had like last Friday's trip to the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison, KS.
While taking the kids to an Amelia Earhart Museum may not sound like their cup of tea, it actually is. Both kids are absolutely fascinated by history. In fact, both Ellie and Ethan have every U.S. President memorized. Honestly, that's probably not normal for their ages at all. Ellie initially learned about Amelia Earhart in school last year and she also recently watched an episode of Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum about her. Therefore, Amelia was certainly fresh in her mind when it came time to go to Atchison.
I'm the type of parent that loves to surprise my kids. It's not uncommon for me to not tell them anything about an adventure that we're going on outside of how long the trip to get there will be. While not knowing details doesn't bother Ethan, it absolutely drives Ellie nuts. She will inevitably start yelling at me for not telling her where we're going or what we're doing. Does that make me tell her the answer? Nope, not at all. In my opinion, it's probably good for her to be surprised now and then. Taking that into account, you can imagine that by the time we reached the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum, Ellie was excited and very ready to get out of the car.
After a quick bathroom break, we purchased our tickets and headed into the Museum. The first thing to catch our eye was an AI Reproduction of Amelia Earhart welcoming us to the Museum by telling us stories about her life. Ellie actually thought it was so cool that she decided she needed a picture with Amelia when she was done talking. After that, we headed to see some actual Museum exhibits.
Once we were in the main section of the Museum, Ellie and Ethan were fairly excited to see the centerpiece of the Hangar, a reproduction of the plane Amelia Earhart disappeared in. They especially loved how shiny the plane was due to the reflective aluminum plates all over it. From there, we wandered to an interactive computer exhibit that gave the kids the opportunity to create their own backyard roller coaster much as Amelia Earhart did. Ellie initially failed the safety test on her coaster but I'm proud (and somewhat confused) to say that Ethan's was perfectly safe on the first try.
Following that, we proceeded to weave our way through the Museum. One of the next things that the kids absolutely loved was a rivet gun game with the objective being to attach as many rivets to a plane wing as possible in a particular time frame. Despite my best efforts, I don't think either Ellie or Ethan ever completely understood the task at hand. However, they still had fun doing it. After the rivet game, the kids headed inside a kid-sized plane cockpit where they were able to play and learn about the various controls of a plane courtesy of the disembodied voice of Amelia Earhart.
From there, we headed to the top floor of the Museum where the kids learned the finer intricacies of navigation based upon charting stars and via radio waves and sextant. My favorite part of the Museum though had to be the wall of theories regarding Amelia Earhart's disappearance. While most made some modicum of sense, there were definitely some conspiracy theories that were absolutely outlandish. At the end, you could place your vote for what you think happened to Amelia. For the record, crashing in the ocean was leading the way.
While it certainly took us a little while to get to the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum, I would definitely do it all over again. I love seeing Ellie and Ethan experience new things and also love making new memories with them. Based upon the last few days, they'll certainly be talking about this one for a while.
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