Here we are entering the Garden of Eden...

The kids with some dinosaur of some sort...

Here's another one...

The serpent who beguiled Eve (I decided to leave her and Adam out of the pictures, even though they were "covered"!)

In true Ken Ham fashion, the entire museum is focused on sin being the problem and our need of a Savior. His perspective on Creation is the pure, literal Gospel: God created a perfect and sinless world, but when mankind sinned death and suffering and every form of evil began it's infiltration into the perfect world. Here we have the first sacrifice, that for Adam and Eve's sin in the garden when the Bible says that He gave them "coats of skins." Obviously the skins had to come from a dead animal--those slain to cover their sin.

There was lots of cool stuff about Noah's ark. Here are some models--the first one in the beginning of the flood. If you look closely you can see the tiny little people on the rocks still above the water.

And on Mount Ararat...

They had a portion of a scale model of the ark, too, while it was under construction.

And there were, of course, lots of great dinosaurs--this one being by far the coolest. He was completely animated and you would not believe how realistic it was!!! His movements and especially his eyes were just amazing.

Don't know what this thing was, but he looked cool.

A small portion of the t-xex. (Most of the dino's weren't animated, but they were still very, very cool.)

Sam loved the dinosaurs and asked to have his picture taken with every one of them!

There were lots of other very, very cool things, but I really didn't get as many pictures as I had planned on. (We were experiencing some very frustrating technical difficulties today--of all days!) The "journey" you take in this musuem takes you from God's perfect Creation through the fall of man an sin's enterance into the world and the effect it has had down through the years. You see the flood and it's effects, the Grand Canyon and it's proof that there was, indeed, a massive flood, and you walk through darkened alleys covered in grafitti and trash and newspaper clippings of gay marriage and such sins--this path is all the result of man's rejection of God and has destroyed the perfect world He created. It is sooooo good--it's not just about the fact that God did, indeed, create the world in 6 literal days. It's goes so much deeper than that! That's only the very beginning of the complete Gospel message--which is conveyed beautifully and entirely throughout the museum. (Except, of course, for the message of God's Church! ;-) But we knew that!) There are some video presentations in different locations as you proceed, the final one being entitled The Last Adam. It would take too long to tell you about it, so I'll just say that it was sooooooo good. Powerful is not a word I often use, but I think it would apply here. I was so touched by the Gospel message all over again and the sacrifice that is demanded for sin--for my sin. Wow. I felt truly ministered to day! If anybody ever walks through that museum (even one who had never known a single thing about Jesus Christ or the Bible), he can no longer have any excuse--he has seen and heard a true and powerful presentation of the salvation message. Soooooooo cool! Along with that, I'll say that if any of you are ever within 200 miles of Cincinnati you have no excuse for not going to this museum! Ha! Highly recommended. :-) :-) :-)

They have also created a really neat walking trail and botanical gardens just outside of the museum. It was beautiful (and the perfect day--nice and cool) and great to give the kids a chance to run around a little bit before getting back in the van.

~whew~ It took a while to get all of those pictures up here! After we left the museum (we were there for 4 and 1/2 hours--and we didn't even get a chance to do the planetarium!) we went for lunch at Big Boy. Hit the road for just a little while before we came across some outlet stores. James was hoping to find a cheap suit at Haggar, but no luck. He did come away with a couple of pairs of pants though, so that's good. I took the kids browsing while James was trying on suits, but we didn't have any luck either. We walked in the Old Navy outlet because it was right across "road." All I can say is eewy!!! (Isn't that what Abigail says, Em?!) That store was terrible! The music, the clothes, the whole "feel" in there was just... icky. I can't imagine a church girl ever being able to find anything... suitable (!) in that store! So we went to Bath & Body works. They had terrific prices and I probably would have come away with a bottle of lotion, at least, but even for $3.99 it just wasn't worth it to wait in the line--I'd had all I could take of crowds today!

We didn't make it too far today, but that wasn't our goal so it's okay. Our goal was to have a great time at the museum, which we did. We are in Zanesville, Ohio now, so that means we've got... hhmmm, 6 or 8 hours away from James' folks house. We should make it there tomorrow afternoon. It seems so strange to not be going to church on a Sunday (!!!), but that seems to be the way it all fell this time.

I'm wiped out. Going to bed. It will be much more difficult to blog from James' folks house because they've got super slow dial-up--if they even have the Internet access anymore! I'll see what it's like when we get there. We'll be headed down to Cleveland next Saturday, but I'm sure I won't be blogging a whole lot during the Assembly anyway! We'll just have to see what happens. Until next time, whenever that is...

~Becki~

(Forgive all of the typo's--I'm sure there are a ton and I haven't the energy to proof anything tonight!)