Saturday, August 21, 2010

phoenix children's museum revisited

Now that the Hawaii posts are finally done I still have some catch up to play.  I guess most of my posts for awhile will consist of the various ways I find to keep us entertained in the Phoenix heat now that we are back to the reality of living in a place where it isn't always 75 degrees outside.  My first suggestion is to get a Culture Pass toa nice air conditioned, indoors place.  Back in June we went with my sister Emily and her kids to Phoenix Children's Museum. We have been before, but not since they made this:
It is called "The Climber" and it is pretty amazing. It is sort of maze like with lots of ramps and tunnels. Sometimes you get into a little bit of a traffic jam, but the kids seemed to like it... well, it took a little time to grow on Lucy.  Most of the structure is steel, but there are a lot of other interesting elements such this flying bathtub:
It also incorporates a lot of found object art and there are lots of cool sculptures hanging from the surrounding ceiling.
One of the only problems with the museum is that each exhibit is so fun that it is hard to get your kids to move onto the next thing.  It usually takes a little convincing, but then once they have moved on they are usually happy that they did.  Jimmy loved pulling the crank on this cactus that made spiders and things fly off the top. 
And the "Noodle Forest" is always an adventure.  Jimmy (as usual) just wanted to follow Lucy the whole time.  
He is lucky she is so nice to him.
More levers to pull at the race track:
Another fine pizza creation from my little cook:
One of Jimmy's all time favorites, "The Car Wash":
My favorite new edition since last time, "The Fort Room":
When we got into the room is was kind of mess and there were not any good forts to be found.  Being the master fort builder that I am, I put Lucy, Finn, and Jimmy to work while the other mom's just sat around talking letting their kids throw pillows at each other.  We made our fort and then we connected it to one two other girls had made behind the door so we definitely had the biggest fort in the room.  Lucy liked having some other girls in the fort and were happy to share it with lots of new friends that came crawling through. However, one little girl did tell me that we had hogged all the good fort building stuff.  I felt slightly bad, but I knew it wasn't really true since I could see lots of stuff still lying on the floor.  She just wanted me to give her permission to steal some of our pieces, but I just told her that this fort was for everybody so she could either play with us or go cry to her mommy.... okay, I didn't really say that last part, but I wanted to.  I think the point of this story is that I rock at building forts and I make other people jealous.  Such is life.
Anyway, the kids played in it for a really long time and once again didn't want to leave.  They had each made their own "bed" so Finn and Jimmy were even ready to take naps in it.  I kind of wish they had.
And there is always fun stuff to do in "The Craft Room."
This is a castle that gets painted with a new color everyday so the paints just keeps getting layered on.
And Playdough and cookie cutters will certainly entertain for awhile.

Thank you Culture Passes for getting us in for free...
Seriously, folks if you want to go find a way to avoid paying!  It is way too pricey in my opinion.

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