Day at the Museums

Brian approached me a few weeks ago with the idea of the family going to Raleigh for the day while he attended a conference for work.

I'm a realist.... I immediately thought that it would mean an early morning for us (out the door, packed for the day by 7am), doggie care, and me alone with 4 kids away from the house:) Not to mention it was just 2 days from Chris' party with friends coming to the house.

But the benefits kept the idea alive. Having 2 hours each way with Brian was a key... definitely some bonding time stuck in the car for hours;) We are so blessed with having two great museums right next to each other that are sooo kid-friendly and sooo informative! I learn soooo much when I am there!! And that the majority of the cost of the trip (gas and parking) was already provided through work/conference!!

So I baked, purchased and packed to provide meals for the kids and I - morning, lunch and snack times;) We rose early and loaded up into the car eager for an exciting day:)

We had a wonderful time..... gleaning information, "seeing" what we have learned played out in artifacts and displays/videos, exploring in the kids' room.... but,

it was a challenging day too!!

 My pictures display the 1/70th-ish of a second shots don't include the fussy, demanding 3yr old (just a stage... at least that's what I'm telling myself), or the bored/tired 6 yr old, not to mention the almost 8 yr old being told by a much-older visitor to have better museum manners.... humpf :/

A normal day in a not-so-normal (for us) place.

Onto the pictures.. I don't have many b/c I let Anna use the camera to capture what she wanted to through the museum!

Chris loving the pirate ship replica

The history museum had bags you could check out with activities and books. We did this "overall" bag and the Indian bag. We didn't do every activity but it was helpful.

Nate used the mini slate from the history bag as we joined the museum's story time. Love that he's soo "into" writing his name right now. He's doing it alone now but during the trip he wanted me to write it first:)

It was very cool to read a book about the Wright brothers (from our bag) sitting under the replica! Yes, even stopping once or twice to pick out the different parts or figure out where the brother's rode;)

Nate was cracking the kids' room attendant up with how much he loved the BIG beetles from the dead wood display. It was something he had to ask to play with and he had the man there for a LONG time a couple of times;) Lots of hand-washing going on, too!

The amazing high-powered TV microscope had our attention for a while!! Did you know that the Lincoln Memorial statue can be seen in the Memorial engraving on a penny?? I never knew!

Chris of course checked out his latest splitter wound.

I think they took out all the boxes at least once while we were in the kids' room!! Funny to have them all working on separate things for a little bit of time!

I got my first sniff of fossilized dinosaur poo.... awesome! LOL!!

Nate's first remembered trip on an escalator. I was very thankful we did that at the end of the day because we might have spent the rest of the day just riding the escalator- if it was up to Nate;)

We even got to walk through and explore the new Science Research Center for a little while!! It's amazing and very modern! Not sure of all that is discussed but definitely a place for older kids (or my kids to grow into).

I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I might not try to do all I tried to do (understatement of the year). And maybe planned for a few downtime/snack breaks. But the kids are still talking about their "day at the museums in Raleigh" and I have already tied something we saw to what we started this week in history.

So lots of benefits to getting out of our routine and spending the day just absorbing;) Maybe it will be a yearly thing:)