Family Day

 So what did you do for Family Day?  Did you spend it with the Family or did you take advantage of a day off, for most, and get some work done around the house? If you are like us you strategize and plan well in advance, after all we did not want to waste this opportunity to spend time with the kids.
 Friday night our planning started.  My wife called her nephew to see if their cottage was available for us to take advantage of.  No go, cottage occupied for the weekend.  Plan B, let's wake up in the morning and see what the weather is like and decide what to do.  Saturday morning the snow was falling and it was windy and cold, let's stay home today and do something tomorrow.  Now we did get some things completed around the house and my wife got caught up with work, fun day.  Plan C, wake up Sunday and decide to farm out the kids to friends and relatives so we can continue with the work we started Saturday, after all it's not Family Day yet.  Plan D, Sunday night we decide that we must do something the next day, but not spend much money.  That`s as far as we got.  Monday morning I wake up early with the kids, that chose not to sleep in, and I fall asleep on the couch.  I wake up to everyone running around and my wife saying we are headed to the Science Centre and we are buying a family pass for the year.  So much for not spending much money.
 Now if you were paying attention to our plan you can see how we systematically eliminated all options allowing us to end up at the Science Centre.  If we had just selected the Science Centre we would have had something happen and ended up at home for the day doing laundry.  As it was we had a great day with the kids and learned that the Science Centre is a very busy place on Family Day.
 Now when was the last time you were at the Science Centre?  If you are like me it has been many many years and as much as it has changed over the years it is still the same.  The things you want to try the most are either closed or don`t work.  The static ball to make your hair stand up, closed.  The exhibit for making your own paper airplane and throw it through targets, no paper left.  The waterfall area where the kids can build dams and manipulate the water, oh it was open just had a big kid that would not let anyone play.  In fact this kid would remove what other kids did.  Parents, any parents around?  Of course not, so I dunked his head in the water and told him to back off and let my kids play.  Just kidding, we moved on to the anatomy section.  Do you know where all your inside parts go?  We don`t either.  We did visit other planets, in fact I think there were people at the Science Centre that are from some of those planets, Uranis comes to mind.

 Next challenge, remove the core from the nuclear reactor by building a device from scrap parts and stay out of the danger zone.  Sounded simple enough so my oldest and I built our special tool with a long piece of wood and an eye bolt.  We were then told remove slowly and straight up, any movement would set off the reactor.  Who are we kidding, I have trouble staying between the lines when I drive.  When all was said and done we caused a nuclear disaster but had fun trying to avoid it.  Everyone had fun at the Science Centre and we plan to visit again when there are fewer people.

 We finished the day at home with family eating pizza and playing some mini sticks hockey.  The kids are still the champs, but just barely.  All in all I would say that our planning made for a great Family Day and will lead to our own Family Days in the future.  Just goes to show that good planning can lead to wonderful moments with your kids.