A Four Day Weekend
Memorial Day weekend spoiled us. It was the kind of weekend where Ryan came home Thursday night and surprised us with the news he took the next day off last minute, so we could have a four-day weekend. After traveling previously, then work being pretty chaotic for Ryan it was a nice surprise. Four whole days to spend as just our family. It was a slow and easy kind of weekend where we filled it with relaxing, family time and some fun stuff too. Friday we didn’t do too much, we ran a few errands in the morning, then picked up my grandparents from their trip and took it easy that next day. Saturday we took A to the Children’s Museum here in Denver, something we have been talking about doing for quite some time and we finally went.
We had so much fun with her at the Children’s Museum. We made a full day of it, we packed and lunch and headed out for the day. There were so many fun activities to do there for kids, most were geared towards Kindergarten+ age group but we had fun in all of the areas. We started out in the 3 and under area where it’s set up just for kids A’s age. There was a corner specifically for babies, then an area that was for the walkers and crawlers and it went from there. A had so much fun in there. Crawling through tunnels, exploring new areas. There was a small cottage with a toddler size table, wooden kitchen set, a farmers market set up, an old mill and a garden, plus a fun “fishing” area. She had so much fun interacting with the other kids her age. After we had fun in there, we headed upstairs.
First stop was the Banfield Vet Section. She put on a vet coat and stethoscope and headed into the Veterinary office set up. There were lots of stuffed animals and plastic vet tools for her to play with, complete with X-Rays. It was a little over with older kids but A handled it well, so we let her have her fun and moved onto some of the other exhibits. Next to the vet exhibit was the paper rocket exhibit where kids could make a paper rocket with their parents and shoot them into a plexiglass area. Obviously building a rocket was a little much for A, so we helped her make one and she had a blast pushing the button to shoot them off.
Next stop was the Recycling Construction Center. They had huge bins of recycled materials – cardboard, wood pieces, egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, plastic lids, plastic containers, and more. Then they had plans for different items that could be made. The first round through Ryan and A made a car from a toilet paper roll and plastic lids. The second time around they (ahem – daddy) made a treasure chest out of cardboard food boxes. She had fun making things and you could tell that Ryan was very much enjoying building things with his little girl. The next stop was the train room, we didn’t spend much time in there though – we built a little track and had a train go around and that was about it. The kids weren’t sharing well in there and A wasn’t generally interested.
The Bubble Room was our next stop and that room was a ton of fun. There were several activities in this exhibit to do with bubbles. It was a little wet but they provided kids with lab coats and glasses. A wasn’t a fan of the glasses, so we were just a little more careful. They had large metal hoops to make huge bubbles, it was tricky but once you got the hang of it, it was pretty fun to do. There was a box where you could pull the pulley to make a 4 sided bubble surround you, a bubble machine that would drop huge bubbles from the ceiling and a then a fun area where bubble dropped but if you touched them they would evaporate. Really fun exhibit. We spent quite a bit of time in there.
Our next stop in the museum was the market. It had a kitchen and a farmers market. The first time we went through it the kids all interacted together and were great about including A. She had a great time playing with the food and kitchen equipment. Our girl certainly loves to play, which is such a wonderful thing. Golly she has pretend playing down to a T. The second time through the exhibit though was pretty rough for her. She was playing by herself taking a large cooking spoon, scooping up peaches and putting them in a large stockpot. She wasn’t hurting anything and was working on her coordination skills, doing swimmingly and older kids kept taking the food from her and putting it back. A couple of times we would say “she’s playing with that” and the kids would just give us a glare. The last time though was when a girl came and completely took her pot away while she was getting another peach and the sadness on A’s face broke my heart, she tossed her arms out and was in complete disbelief. The parents of course did nothing, so we went elsewhere. I’m so glad she had fun playing in there during the morning though.
The last exhibit upstairs was split between a set up that looked like an large backyard with animal homes – tunnels, webs, nests – for the kids to play like they were animals. A had a nice time in there, she wasn’t sure about the tunnels but she did go through the short one. If she can see the light at the end, she’s willing to give it a shot – a long dark hole though..no way. Ha. The other half was the art area, crafts and painting. She loves to paint at home so we knew she would have a great time painting and she did. She did a great job on her painting and she made a couple other things while we waited for the paint to dry.
Mid-day we ate lunch at the park and she took a nap. Once she woke up we went back in to go through everything one more time, including the ball exhibit which the kids could build ramps and such to lead balls to different areas, she likes to watch the balls zoom from one side of the room to the other. We went through the other exhibits one more time and we ended back in the three and under area. It was a great way to end the day for her. She enjoyed playing in there since everything was just her size and the kids were nicer to her since they were similar in age.
We had a great time and were pleasantly surprised at how clean everything was, and they were constantly cleaning the whole time. Seeing that made us want to go back again in the future. It’s something we plan to go back to a couple times a year. She had so much fun.
Sunday we took things easy, hung out around the house, went to the park, got some things done, ran some errands and on Monday we went up to the mountains for a hike. It’s always so nice to get out of the city and into the mountains. It rained while we were there so our hike was bit chilly but we saw some deer which A thought was super nice. So that was fun.
Overall, it was just a nice, long weekend. We felt like we got some good family time in so we have no complaints there. Too bad every weekend isn’t a four-day weekend!
