Day 2,135 - Checking Out the Cosmopshere

One thing that I’ve always appreciated about Ellie and Ethan is that they really aren’t the type of kids who go “I want that.” Yeah, it’s true that any time we go shopping, Ethan wants to make a detour through the toy car aisle to see what excitement lies there. However, our trip just ends with him looking instead of asking to buy. Ellie is the same way; she’s really never coveted possessions at all. It’s not really a bad thing. That being said, there is one area where both kids are apt to say “I want that.” That is generally in regard to having some kind of adventure.

For example, about a month ago, Ellie let Bethany know that she would like to go on some kind of trip to celebrate her tenth birthday. That makes sense to me. After all, ten is a pretty big birthday. With that, Bethany began researching potential trips for the two of them and eventually landed on the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS. While Ellie is our lone aspiring astronaut of the family, Ethan is intrigued by space as well. Taking that into account, Bethany was able to talk Ellie into making it a family outing instead of a girls’ trip.

Fast forward to Thursday as we all piled into the Traverse and made our way to Hutch. As part of our adventure, we weren’t just going to the Cosmosphere. We also picked out a hotel with an indoor swimming pool to ensure our kids could swim to their little hearts’ content. At least that’s what we thought would happen. Instead, we were treated to perhaps the coldest indoor swimming pool in the history of the world. I’m not exaggerating at all here. Ethan actually turned blue and physically shook in my arms for a good thirty minutes once he exited the pool.

The next morning we got up and ate our breakfast at the hotel before heading to the Cosmosphere as soon as it opened at 9:00 am. The second we walked in the door, Ellie made a beeline for an astronaut-themed photo opportunity before we could even buy our tickets. After purchasing our tickets, we first made our way to the planetarium for a 45-minute documentary about the creation of the space shuttle. I admit that it’s a little shocking that our kids not only sat still for that long but also that they were engaged the entire time. After all, this was an adult documentary; not one made specifically for kids. Case in point, it spent time discussing both the Challenger and Columbia explosions which apparently Ellie was already completely aware of. Nuts, right?

Once the documentary ended, we began weaving our way through the museum. Before we go any further, there is something you should know about Ethan. He has a completely irrational fear of black-and-white pictures. Yes, I’m being serious. We actually entered a wing of the museum and his first words were, “I don’t want to go in there. The pictures are all too black-and-white.” With a little coaxing and some hand holding, we did successfully get him through that section of the museum.

That is a real meteorite/asteroid that she's holding there. It's pure iron and very heavy!

Around noon, we made our way into “Dr. Goddard’s Lab” where we we had a front-row seat to a show all about the concept of rocket propulsion complete with awesome real-life explosions. We actually ended up in a slight snowstorm of debris from exploding cotton. Ellie would actually refer to this as one of her favorite parts of the entire Cosmosphere later on our way home from Hutch.

There are definitely some other parts of the Cosmosphere experience that bear mentioning in any report about our experiences. Chief among them would have to be the Sphero Maze. For those who are unenlightened much like Bethany and I were, a Sphero is a ball-shaped robot controlled by an iPad. If you’re thinking of BB-8 from Star Wars, you’re not far off. Ellie has actually told Bethany and I about Spheros for the last couple of years as she has plenty of experience working with them at SAGE. This was our first time laying eyes on them though. While you think it might be easy to guide a remote-control object through a maze, it’s actually fairly difficult. I know I failed plenty of times. Both kids had a blast though.

Ellie and Ethan also received the opportunity to design an actual patch for a future space mission. Unfortunately, I failed to snap a picture of their designs. I did keep my own design though. After all, it seemed a bit silly for a grown man to submit a design in a contest for children. Ellie did say that I would have won though so I’ll always have that affirmation.

By the time we left the Cosmosphere, we had actually spent five hours exploring the entire building. From an adult perspective, one of the coolest things about the entire Cosmosphere is that it is the home of the actual capsule from Apollo 13. I don’t mean the movie; I mean the actual capsule that the real-life astronauts survived in. It makes its home in Hutchinson, KS of all places. How wild is that?

For the record, even after exploring the Cosmosphere and learning about the good and bad parts of space travel, Ellie still desires to become a real-life astronaut more than anything. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m not sure if people with glasses can be astronauts or not but she can definitely pursue a career in space-related ventures if she’s so inclined. Time will tell what she decides to do with her life but she does have pretty sweet ambitions if I do say so myself.

#DaddyWrite

Good dog, Cosmo.

Day 2,132 - Catching Up with Ellie

As Staind would say all the way back in 2003, it’s been a while. Side note: I actually believe that number of days is still correct.

You know how it is though; life gets crazy sometimes. When the kids started back to school last fall, it got really crazy, really fast. Part of that was my own doing though. After all, when you spend nearly 60 days working as an elementary school substitute teacher, days fill up pretty fast. That’s not all bad though. After all, how cool is it that I could frequently cross paths with Ellie and Ethan in the hallways on their own turf?

Of course, subbing wasn’t the only thing keeping us busy over the past few months. We also decided that the thing to do was to buy a new house. Yes, that’s right. After 13 years of making our home on 103^rd Street, we finally pulled the trigger and decided to make a move. Even though we didn’t actually move until the end of May, there’s been plenty of projects to keep us busy in the meantime. For example, we ripped out the carpet in the basement of our new house and laid down luxury vinyl planks. There’s also been plenty of work to do to get our old house ready to be a rental. Yes, that’s right; we’re going to be landlords. Cool, huh?

One of the biggest changes though for our family has to be that Ellie turned 10 on Saturday! If I’m being absolutely honest that has to be one of the weirdest changes that we’ve gone through recently. While there definitely weren’t any massive mental or physical changes between her last day of nine and her first day of 10, something just felt different. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she officially has less years remaining under our roof than what she has spent thus far. Maybe it’s just the reality of her growing up and continuing to gain new experiences. Or maybe it’s a simple as 10 being a landmark birthday since it has a zero following the first number.

Seeing as how Ellie is 10 now, it’s probably a good time to do a quick check-in. In case you’re wondering, she’s 155.7 cm and 79 lbs. Actually now that I look at that 155.7 cm, I’m not convinced that the doctor didn’t measure her incorrectly. After all, that would be something like 5 feet, 11 inches and I can definitely say that she’s not that tall.

What I can confirm is what exactly Ellie at 10 years old is like. For one thing, she absolutely loves to read. She’s easily already read ten books this summer and she’s not just picking the easy ones. She’s always trying to challenge herself. That’s fairly evident in her love of math. She’s constantly wanting us to give her complicated problems to work through and can’t stand failure. She will just keep trying until she gets something right.

One of her biggest loves currently is space. Ellie will tell anyone who listens that she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. Here’s hoping that it happens because that would be a pretty sweet job. She even has embraced space with her new room. The ceiling is adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. She has a color-changing lamp shaped like a planet that she bought with her very own money. She even received a new comforter with a depiction of a galaxy on it for her birthday!

Something that definitely hasn’t changed is Ellie’s penchant for activity. She hates being stationary and always has to be doing something. If we’re at home, she’s either playing outside or doing some kind of art project. As far as athletic pursuits, she just finished up tennis camp last week and will likely be playing volleyball again this fall. She also loves swimming so it goes without saying that our pool passes are getting plenty of use this summer. She also is active in 4H and is submitting 3 different projects to the county fair this year.

I’m sure that it’s obvious that I’m pretty proud of Ellie. However, I haven’t even gotten to what makes me the proudest. You see, I love the person that she has become over the past couple of years. She has turned into a genuinely kind person who loves everyone around her. At school, it’s not uncommon for her to take an interest in the kids who might be an outcast and invite them to be part of her group of friends. If I had to guess, I’d say that the attitude she has developed for others comes from her faith in Jesus. She’s totally unafraid of representing Him and has shared about her faith with all of her friends on multiple occasions throughout the years.

Ok, I’ve probably gone on about Ellie for long enough tonight. It was actually really fun to sit down and write after a lengthy break. I’ll try to be better about doing so in the future. No promises though!

#DaddyWrite

Day 2,060 - Counting Coins

I don’t know if I should say this or not, but I really don’t care for virtual learning days. My only hesitation in saying so is that I am a substitute teacher. As such, I probably shouldn’t have a problem with kids continuing to learn outside of the traditional school setting. However, that’s just it. The majority of the work that kids do on virtual learning days is busy work. Maybe “reinforcing existing knowledge” would be a more appropriate term to use in this instance. However, I’m not a fan.

It just so happens that I’m not the only one in my house that feels that way though. Ellie and Ethan share my feelings towards. In fact, that was fairly evident yesterday when after one hour of virtual learning, they had basically met every goal that their teachers had for them for the day. While they could have continued to do some virtual work, I found myself not only wanting to escape the house but also wanting to make sure that Ellie and Ethan learned something. After a little bit of research and a few ideas that were shot down by one or the other, we settled on a trip to The Money Museum.

In case you don’t know, The Money Museum is actually housed in the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve. That means that we had a little drive downtown ahead of us. When we reached the Fed, I was more than a little concerned about the completely empty parking lot that we found there. Perhaps we had made our trip in vain. However, those feelings were rectified as we were met by security at the entrance and escorted inside.

The first thing that we found was a complete wall of coins known as the Harry S. Truman Coin Collection. Under a picture of each U.S. President, there lay a collection of coins that were actively used during their presidency. I was more than a little surprised to see the number of questions that Ellie and Ethan had about the different coins there. Honestly, some of them were relatively hard to answer like Ellie asking, “Why wouldn’t they just call it a nickel instead of a half-dime?” I never did have an answer for that one.

An image of the coins used during the tenure of the first three Presidents.

After finishing up at the wall of coins, we continued to weave through the Money Museum. The kids were next drawn to a glass case containing a gold brick. A twenty-seven pound gold brick with a handle attached to it to be precise. The case contained one hole big enough to put one’s arm through so that you could attempt to lift said brick. Even though we all tried multiple times, none of us were able to lift the brick. Don’t judge me too much; it was a really awkward angle.

After trying in vain to lift the brick, we found a table engraved with various brass plates with pieces of paper and crayons that you could use to create rubbings of your own dollar bills. Ellie and Ethan absolutely loved this and spent a ton of time designing and coming up with their own special design. I even got into the spirit and spent some time designing as well. I think my bill might be the first ever bill to feature a cow in the center of the bill!

The final stop along our tour was at a window that peered inside the Fed’s vault where we could watch workers process money. It probably comes as no surprise to those that know her but Ellie is very inquisitive by nature. As such, she was filled with question after question about everything that was happening inside the vault. Ethan, for his part, was more intrigued by the three robotic forklifts (named Snap, Crackle, and Pop) that were responsible for carrying large boxes of cash from room to room.

Finally, after about an hour and a half, the kids let me know that they were ready to call it a day at the Money Museum. However, before we could leave, we still had to grab our free bag of shredded money to keep as a souvenir.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the vault. As such, enjoy these photos of the kids.

While I never know exactly how much the kids get out of an outing like this, I was pleasantly surprised when both kids sat around the dinner table that night and regaled Bethany with tales of everything they had learned on their outing. I guess we did do some learning on a snow day. Pretty cool, right?

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Day 2,049 - Science City Shenanigans

This has most definitely been the longest stretch without writing of my stay-at-home parenting career. 2025 was kind of an adventure of a year for our family but I’ll get into that some other time. I’m a little bummed though when I think about all of the really cool experiences that Ellie and Ethan had that I neglected to write about.

There was another soccer season for Ethan where he got better and better each week. Ellie tried volleyball for the first time and quickly fell in love with it. She’s not half bad either. I spent twenty-something days subbing at the kids’ elementary school over the first semester of the year. Honestly, it’s not a bad day’s work. I inevitably get to see them in passing several times. I get to know some of their teachers and friends. I also get a nice little paycheck so I feel like I’m contributing to our household finances.

I know there were tons of other things from this summer and fall that I missed documenting. However, I can’t go back now. Instead, I’ll just try to make sure I do a better job not missing cool experiences moving forward. Also, in case you’re wondering, yes, the #DaddyWrite count is correct. I actually went back and checked out personal calendar for the year, taking out every day off work for Bethany and each day I subbed.

I know I mentioned up above how there were lots of cool experiences for the kids that I failed to document. One of those cool experiences though that I can document happened this week as Ellie, Ethan, and myself were able to spend the morning putting our brand-new yearly passes at Science City to good use.

In case you’re unaware, Science City is Kansas City’s most popular children’s museum. Housed inside Union Station, it’s very easy for one to spend several hours engaging in a variety of hands-on activities. While I mentioned our passes being brand-new, this was actually our second visit to Science City since purchasing. I would be remiss if I neglected to mention how much the kids love the place. One of the great things though is just how easy it is to find something new to really gravitate towards each time you visit.

For Ethan, he was super intrigued by a tug-of-war station attached to a giant lever. I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows Ethan and his competitive nature but he wanted to keep challenging me to a game of tug-of-war over and over and over. While I feel like I would normally match up decently well against the little man, that was not to be the case with this particular game. Ethan’s rope was attached to the top of the giant lever whereas mine was attached to the bottom. As a result, no matter how hard I pulled and yanked, I could never overcome the advantage that the rope’s position gave him. Ethan, for his part, didn’t brag about his victories TOO much.

For Ellie, the thing that really caught her interest resided in the “Brain Games” section of Science City. That thing was called “Mindball.”  Essentially, what Mindball does is allows you to channel Eleven from “Stranger Things”. Two players will sit down at opposite sides of a table and strap a sensor around their foreheads. Then, you simply stare at a ball in the middle of the table. The sensor somehow senses your ability to stay calm and focused and will cause the ball to move. The calmer and more focused one is, the more the ball will move towards your opponent. When the ball reaches one end of the enclosed track on top of the table, then someone loses. Ellie and I had to attempt this game several times over the course of our morning. At the risk of bragging, I am proud to admit that I never lost to Ellie at “Mindball”. My ability to remain calm and focused much outweighs that of my daughter. Ok, maybe I am bragging just a bit.

I know he might look bored but he's actually just really studying hard.

Obviously, there was an entire world of activities for us to explore at Science City but those were definitely two of our favorites. Knowing Ellie and Ethan, I’m sure we’ll find ourselves latching onto a different experience every time we make our way to Science City over the next year.

The sand station was one of my personal favorites.

Or, you know, I might just be destined to forever lose to Ethan at tug-of-war. Time will tell.

#DaddyWrite

Always looking at the stars...or large kaleidoscopes.