We left early Sunday afternoon and arrived in St. Paul around dinner time. With our recent awareness of waste and waste reduction in mind we began our mini-vacation. For dinner we chose a Japanese restaurant--our default for dining out.
First problem: disposable chopsticks. In retrospect we could have asked for forks, but we all like to eat sushi with chopsticks and the idea didn't hit until well after our meal. So, I will plan to make a little pouch for chopsticks and stick it in the glove compartment of the car and we can bring our own next time!
Second problem: leftovers. Of course most restaurants only have styrofoam containers for leftovers and carry-outs. We did have leftovers of salmon teriyaki. The kids didn't like theirs (they need their heads examined!) but it made a great lunch for me today! This one is easy to solve--I will put a couple of food storage containers in the back of the car along with our grocery bags. Problem solved (for next time).
Another conundrum was disposable napkins we used during our meals at the hotel and museum (they had cloth napkins at the Japanese restaurant). I'm going to make a small napkin holder for the car that we can take into a restaurant and use our own cloth napkins that I can then wash at home, for the few occasions that we eat out.
On Monday morning we headed over to the museum for our 10:30 reservation to the Tut exhibit. We also had tickets to see the movie "Mummies" --no not the Brendan Fraser one. Definitely worthwhile.
As we walked through the exhibit, I enjoyed it in a way I haven't enjoyed other exhibits we have seen mostly because I had larger pool of knowledge and understanding of the time period. It's amazing to think of these artifacts being thousands of years old and the workmanship of the culture. Extraordinary. The kids didn't like all the "reading" but they did enjoy looking at the various pieces of history. Erica's highlight was the Ancient Egyptian toilet seat. Aidan liked the whole thing.
It was very cool to see a game of Senet that was found in Tut's tomb in one of the displays. HE and the kids made our own version of this game as one of the projects for this unit.
Each of the kids made the playing pieces out of Sculpey clay. Aidan made vessels and Erica made (big surprise) animal heads. One of them also made an alien head to include with the game. I'm not sure why...
The rest of the museum houses their permanent exhibits, many of which have hands-on components that are engaging for adults and children. There are a huge variety of learning opportunities as well as fun. If you haven't been to this museum it is really worth the trip.
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