On Friday we ignored the million things to do to get ready for a graduation party and putting our house on the market, and instead we finished up Leah's list of things to do one last time in Minnesota. I took the girls to St. Paul, and since Paige was working and missed seeing the cathedral with us recently, we took her back there. It's huge and beautiful inside.
We walked through the capitol building. I like visiting capitol buildings because they're usually so interesting and stunning inside. Each capitol building we've visited is so unique. Sometimes we take tours and walk inside the chambers where lawmakers meet, but this time we just wandered by ourselves.
Lastly, we went to the Landmark Center. When Leah was in 4th grade (maybe?), she wrote a poem that was passed on and won her a poetry reading in this building. We drove 7 hours from our small town just to watch her read her poem in this very spot inside the Landmark Center. It was published in a little book with other students' poems from around Minnesota. We hadn't ever been back inside the building, though it's been on our list to do that all this time.
On the second floor of the building are three interesting and free museums. One is a woodworking museum with many old lathes on display as well as different cool things made with lathes. Another museum is a hands-on musical instrument museum. This was fun to try all the different instruments and read and watch videos about them. The third museum was a hands-off display of many old pianos and versions of pianos, some dating back to the 1600s.
