Hands On Museum

Something fun we have found to do is the Hands On museum downtown.  I took Olivia a couple times before Henry was born (we bought an annual pass), and Garrett took all the girls a couple times after Henry was born while I stayed home with the baby.

Probably the neatest part is the huge "Make it, Take it" room.  They have all sorts of crafting supplies that you can use to make pretty much anything you want.  Then you can take it home.

On this day, Garrett helped Ellie build a house for one of her little stuffed pigs (his name is Bacon)-

We came across another little art room with some easels downstairs, so the girls set to work on some masterpieces:

Shopping at the "grocery store":

Digging for fossils and shark teeth:

There's also lots of other things.. a pretend "bank", one of those shadow rooms that takes pictures of yours shadows on the wall, a black light room, huge building blocks, a stage for "performances", dress ups, lots of bubble stations, a big water feature for floating little boats down a river, etc.

I'm glad we have found something fun to do while the weather is cold or rainy.  The best part is that there's hardly ever anyone else there, as you can tell from the pictures - even though we mostly go on Saturdays (with all 3 girls, anyway... I've been a couple times with just Olivia during the weekdays and it's just as quiet).  I hear that it gets pretty busy in the summertime so we probably won't go then, but I'd prefer to be hiking or just outside anyway so I don't see that being an issue.  Now we just need some friends to meet up with there!