Mini-Vacation Day 2: Children's Museum

Day 2 of our mini-vacation started off well; a decent breakfast at the hotel, packing up and checking out, and then a 20 minute drive downtown to the Children's Museum. I remember having gone there as a kid, and this my the first time visiting it as a parent. It was awesome and the kids had a fantastic time. The one drawback was that it got very crowded by early afternoon. (The weather was really cold that day--only around 37 degrees--and it turned out that Denver schools were also on Spring Break.) 

First, we went to a playscape designed for younger kids (siblings older than 4 were allowed as helpers, but since there weren't many people there yet, Karamea got to play a bit, too.)

Kaylee went straight to this basket, found a book, and sat happily for what seemed like a long time...

Merrick went fishing...

Then Karamea and I headed out and she got to try out the firefighter's pole. After this, there was an announcement about a bead making class and I took Karamea and Kaylee to that for 30 minutes. They each made a bracelet for themselves.

My favorite place was the bubble room. I could have stayed there an hour or more! It made for some really fun photos, too!

Our little scientists with their safety goggles on:

Mark enjoyed making bubbles. Karamea enjoyed popping them. :)

This was a "bubble booth" where you pull up a square frame and it creates a box with bubble sides.

Then the kids painted for a while in the art studio.

The next room had the kids entertained for a long time: a room filled with plastic balls and an air-pressured system that pumped the balls to different locations to roll down tracks the kids made. They loved putting them into the pressurized tube, seeking them shoot up to the ceiling and make their way through the tracks back to them. We had to cut our time in this room a little short because it was really crowded.

The last room we visited was a child-sized veterinarian's office. There were scrubs, stethoscopes, stuffed animals, crates, and more and the kids got to pretend they were vets. They loved it. Mark and I loved it because it was way less crowded and much quieter than where we had just been. It was such a nice way to end a fun-filled day!