Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

This last Saturday, we had the opportunity to visit Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum (Home of the Spruce Goose) in McMinnville, about 40 minutes from our house. One of mine and Kyle's friends from our Singles Ward days just happens to be the Director of Membership there. She also just happen to look at our blog after we posted about driving past the Museum on our anniversary getaway, and commented on how she could "hook us up"! We couldn't pass up this unbelievable offer (The tickets are not cheap!) and Saturday was the day. So, THANK YOU, thank you, Amy! We had a wonderful day. And while our kids aren't quite old enough to read and appreciate all the amazing information and incredible airplane/space flight collection they have there, they definitely enjoyed seeing the airplanes, seeing all the stuff about space, and taking advantage of the children-focused exhibits. I was pleasantly surprised how much they did have geared for young kids, too. It was all awesome and we came home with three exhausted kiddos.

Amy also got us tickets to see "Hubble 3D" at the OmniMax Theater there! That was incredible and the first 3D movie I've seen. Talk about making you ponder the "big picture" of life. It was awesome. Here we are in our cool 3D glasses:

Amyanne and Spencer unsuccessfully trying to get some thrust on the wind machine in the Kid Zone area.

Skyler flying solo!

All three kiddos; thank goodness they had three of these:). Spencer in front of the yellow airplane: his absolute favorite color.

They have an impressive play structure outside the Space Museum. We had lunch there, then let the kids play while we took turns going back inside to look at more exhibits.

The kids' loved this ride, also inside the Space Museum.

This statue is Captain Michael King Smith, son of Evergreen Aviation founder, and for whom the educational institute is named. Evergreen is an impressive company: they have their "finger" in so many different industries: nursery/farming, museum, international airline, vineyards, and I'm sure more that I don't know about. They seemed to be really focused on educating society and giving back to the community.

This rocket also goes two floors underground: you can go down and see the "rocket engines" (or whatever they're called; sorry I'm not more of an expert), and watch a space shuttle taking off from a re-created "Command Center." They are also planning to get one of the retired Space Shuttles from NASA soon! That will be fun to see.

A piece of the German Wall. I thought this was pretty amazing.

It was a fun filled day. Thanks again, Amy!