Adventure Science Center

As we continue our search in concentric circles for our next adventure, we came across a children’s museum in Nashville, the Adventure Science Center. Aside from dropping the girls or Grandma off at the airport, the girls and I have not spent a lot of time in Nashville, so it was about time we dove into navigating the typical big city that is always about an hour away from Army posts (such as Seattle for Joint Base Lewis-McChord or Tucson for Fort Huachuca). The girls and I were all very excited to spend most of the day here, learning and interacting with science, biology, engineering, and the universe. If you have read this blog before, you probably think this is going to be another post where we all had a good time, the girls happily surprised me, and we all learned a valuable lesson along the way; unfortunately, this is not going to be one of those posts.

Adventure is Out There! Yep, it is literally on the sign.

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Discovery Park of America

Prior to the girls arriving at Fort Campbell following the year with their Mother, I conducted an extensive search on activities within a few hours of the post. I found a large selection of zoos, children’s museums, playgrounds, trampoline parks, and other activities to give them a large variety of things to do during our weekends. While trampolining in the backyard and going to the local pool have been fun, nothing in the area has been quite as amazing as visiting the Discovery Park of America in Union City, TN.

Looks like the girls are ready for some fun

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The Calkins Family’s Arizona Farewell Tour

“All good things must come to an end.” Unfortunate proverb, but so very true. Being in the military, it is only a matter of time before you have to move to a different duty station. Thankfully, through the Assignment Interactive Module (AIM) marketplace, we will always have choices in where we go next, but it still means that we have to leave Fort Huachuca. And, make no mistake, we have had a great time here. Before we left though, Elaina, Gabriella, and I wanted to make sure we did all the things that made our posting in Southeast Arizona so memorable.

Niñas. Niñas made it memorable. And giant, realistic dinosaurs.

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Weekend Activities – Children’s Museum Tucson

So we had a four-day weekend due to Veteran’s Day (to all you Veterans, thank you for your service), which meant that the girls got to pick two day’s worth of activities instead of just one. The first day consisted of Children’s Museum Tucson and the Pima Animal Care Center, the latter of which will be a part of an (eventual) series on our family’s journey towards adopting a dog. We have a membership at this children’s museum, just like we did for one at our previous duty station in Washington, because it pretty much pays for itself after two visits. And given that we have already been there four times in the last two months, we seem to be getting our money’s worth.

“And your child can earn their PhD in minutes!”

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