Seattle Tour Part 3

Day 2 of our music tour to Seattle in April began with a trip to the Space Needle, and while we were at the top, I could see this colorful, uniquely-shaped building below us on the east side:

After lunch, we went to that building as part of our itinerary. It was the EMP--the Experience Music Project Museum.

Darcy & I in front of the red exterior section of the EMP.

One of the first things we saw inside was this giant floor-to-ceiling pillar of guitars and other instruments. Some of the guitars were hooked up to an electrical circuit that actually played songs on them. It was really neat!

Inside the museum was a whole bunch of doors that go into different areas of the museum. There was a room of historical guitars, a room of Nirvana memorabilia, a giant room with recording studios that had an assortment of instruments and vocalist possibilities, the largest screen I've ever seen playing music videos, and apparently an entire wing dedicated to Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror movie items. I didn't even find that entire wing, because the majority of the time we were in EMP, I was in the Lego room. The only room that really had nothing to do with music!!!

Inside the room were life-size replicas of famous buildings from around the world, entirely built out of legos:

I recognized this one: the Swiss Building from London!

At the far end of the room is a long table, and shelves behind it full of buckets of legos for people to create their own models!

And that's why I spent so much time in this room: the possibilities were endless!!!

I built a small version of our Salmon Middle School--complete with striped cement foundation, windows that don't open, a drafty ceiling, and uneven floors!

These two dedicated girls were with me almost the entire time, spending hours trying to make a small version of the famous Starbucks building. They even found a picture online to use as their model!

After you built your own models, there was a place in the room that you could put your structures on display. One of our students built the house of windows and the house of doors that you can see in the center. Behind them to the right is the backside of my small schoolhouse model, and behind them to the left is the completed Starbucks building that the girls built. Way, way in the back of the room you can see the tables with the buckets and shelves behind them where we were all working.

Towards the end of our time in the museum, Ethan found the room, and asked what he should build. I said "Why not an elephant?". And that's just what he did. I worked to help him find the parts he needed, and he came up with the design and executed it well!

He has the brain of an engineer, this one!

While we were working on that elephant, a little boy who came with his family was building an "elephant carrier" for our work-in-progress animal. But, his dad made him leave before our animal was completed. He was a cute little kid who was adamant that when we were done we put our elephant inside his carrier ship, so when we finished (just in case he came back to check), we stuck the elephant right next to the ship on the display table because it was actually larger than the spacecraft, and wouldn't fit inside it!

On my way out of the EMP:

At this point, we met back up together as a group by the Space Needle again, and boarded the bus to head to our dinner appointment. Our bus driver's skills were driving me NUTS! So, I did other things to keep myself occupied on the ride--like singing with Darcy and taking weird selfies:

Our dinner appointment was at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Seattle! It was such an awesome experience to eat there. There were 2 other musical youth groups from other schools eating inside it at the same time, too. Every time a song came on the sound system, the whole place came alive with singing and dancing. I've never experienced such a rocking meal! We were all sitting on the platform on the west end of the restaurant, another school was in the center, and the 3rd school was on the platform on the east side. Here's our entire group waiting for dinner, all pictures are labeled clockwise from left to right:

Tess, Regan, Emmy, Brooke, Maddy, Eli

Ammon, Tommy, Hunter, Shea, Jett, Trevor

Ian, Erin, Melissa, Emily, Aspen, Kirsten

Virginia, Moriah, Simon, Shantell, Tim, Kymber, Jean, Keyra

Sara, Madison, Kiersten, Paige, Katy 

Charis, Avery, Kylie, Shania, Ellie, Logan

Jett, Billy, Ethan

Jarred, Dakota, Trey

Chaperones Dawn, Dustin, {student Alex}, Jennifer, John, Holly, Teva

And Me!

I thought I got everyone in the pictures, but then I realized that Jett was pictured in two of them because he moved after Josi came back from going to the bathroom, so I don't have a photo of her. Also, I missed our chaperone Darcy in the above photos because she was talking to some of the kids in the other school groups at the time. But those two ARE included in the video below, and I captured the majority of our group on film as well when the song "Walking on Sunshine" came on in the restaurant. You can totally feel the vibe that was happening inside the place! I loved it!!!



After dinner, we got on the bus again and headed to our final destination on the first day: a viewing of the play "Little Shop of Horrors". I love this particular play, because it was the last play I was ever in during my high school days, when I got to play the awesome role of 'Doo-Wop Girl'. Also, the Salmon High School theater department put it on last year, too, so almost all the students knew the play and were looking forward to professional actors performing it.

This is one of the photos that I FORCED Ammon to take.
I literally had to physically force him in front of the sign!

The play was awesome, and the special effects were so cool. The cast did a great job, and it was a fun way to end our first official day in Seattle!