I Love This PLace

Growing up so far in the country, hours from the nearest major city, I never realized how many aspects of a big city we missed out on. Truth is, big cities are cool. (Yes, big fancy word- I know!) They are. They have events that you can't have when you live in a town without a stop light. Madison is absolutely one of those "cool" places. (Pun intended.)

The latest cool adventure that I have been on in Madison is to go the 40th Annual Christmas Lecture given by a UW Madison professor. He plans these each Christmas, and the tickets are absolutely free! The lectures are always taped and played on our local PBS channel as well.
I took a friend of mine this year with her two kids, and we were excited to go and get good seats, so we got there early. Very early. We beat out all other spectators and were the first by the door.
We had over an hour of time to kill, and with three antsy children had to get creative by sending them on an adventure with Gina to explore the building. That helped.
When we first walked on, the bright "Science is fun" sign catches your eye immediately, putting the kids into an even more excited stupor.
The lecture itself is full of fun experiments with colorful liquids, explosions, and goopy goop that runs everywhere. It lasts for almost an hour and a half, and the kids never get distracted because of all the fun experiments he runs.

I suppose their attentiveness could also be attributed to the visitors that come as well. The UW Badger Band had a section of their brass this year playing at various points during the show. Santa Claus even came to the show to drop off some items for an experiment. Evan's eyes lit up at the sight of this man who he hopes is bringing him lots of toys! But even Santa can't rival Ev's favorite person of the day: Bucky Badger! Bucky sat in the row in front of us, and Evan watched his every move. (Yes, Bucky is wearing Safety glasses. It is a chemistry lab and you need to be safe!)

At the end of the show, he immediately ran over and was the first to pose for a picture with Bucky.
We had an awesome day, and it just reinforces how much I love this cool place we live.