Discovery Science Center at Santa Ana

This was a very cool and fun place. While we were standing in line a worker was asking people about buying memberships. I told them that we we on vacation and so we wouldn't need a membership. The girl said, "You're on vacation and you're not at Disneyland?"

My friend who lives in SoCal recommended this to me and she said they have rotating exhibits and didn't know what it was at the moment.

Well, it ended up being "Grossology", which was very educational, but very gross. We learned more about bodily fluids than I've ever cared to think about.
Natalee learned quite a lot from this guy about snot. As you can see, it's dripping from his faucet nose. She thought that was amazing, so she kept pushing the button that made him talk.

Here's Natalee learning more about the digestive system.

First you climb in a mouth...

Then you slide down the esophagus into the stomach...

Then you crawl through the rectum.

Basically they're turning you into poo.

This was the first thing you came to in the exhibit. I looked around really quick to make sure there wasn't a reproductive system we could crawl through. I'm not ready to go all the way there yet.

There were lots of other very cool things to do. Natalee got to play hockey, which is probably not her calling in life. We played with tinker toys, laid on a bed of nails and watched a movie about turtles. There was just so much to do it was unbelievable.

DINO QUEST

Once you traverse the inside part of the museum, you can go out to this very elaborate Dinosaur exhibit. The first thing you did was sign up to be a Dino Quester (a Questerian, if you will) and they give you this magic wand thingy. Then you sign up for a quest. Then you go through this whole huge dino-land searching for the items in your quest. When you find them, you point your wand at it and it tells you that you found it. When you finish the quest, you get a prize. You could also play in the giant dinosaur and dig for bones. It was all quite impressive.

However, as involved as all of this was, Natalee's most favorite thing in the whole museum was this screen where it projected you onto the wall in a variety of ways. Many years ago at the Children's Museum in Salt Lake there was a room where you'd stand against the wall and this flash would go off and when you moved your shadow was stuck to the wall. It reminded me of Peter Pan's shadow and I loved it. I could have stood in there for hours, and maybe I did. Anyway, this little room reminded me of that and while most of the time (I'd say a solid 90%) I think her personality is more like Nathan, I realize that there is a smidge of me in there too. So no matter what we were doing Natalee kept asking to go back in there. She would just dance and dance. People were getting the biggest kick out of her. She didn't care, she's a dancing fool!

If you happen to be in Orange County and you don't want to go to Disneyland, I would recommend this place.

And this concludes our California Trip.