Arizona Science Center - Sesame Street "Body" Exhibit

I bought a Living Social deal for the Arizona Science Center recently.  I decided to treat my 4-year-old, my friend, and my friend's youngest daughter to a day at the science center.  The science center has several permanent exhibits and typically one or two special exhibits.  Right now, the special exhibit is Sesame Street's "The Body".  Being Sesame Street, Nikki and I opted to leave our oldest children at home and let this outing be for our preschoolers.

The outdoor water play area is the first thing that kids see as they walk into the museum.  It has all sorts of fun things to do.  Below, Jillian and Kayden are making music with pulses of water striking different spoon-shaped things.

One of the permanent exhibits centers around architecture and building houses.  There are tubs of blocks, tables full of shaped tiles, a child-sized house just for little ones, pipes to take apart and put back together, a shower, and the beams with the level....

I was really impressed with the Sesame Street exhibit for something fun and different to do with Jillian.  I was really glad I'd left my older two at home.  There were many hands-on and age-appropriate activities for the little ones.

The girls had fun with this one.  Pedaling, kicking and jumping made the Sesame Street characters move and light up.

This was another big hit.  You can make a trail light up by walking on the feet (to the left in the picture), rolling the wheelchair, or rowing.  Jillian and Kayden made it a race.

There were magnetic pieces of clothing to peel off and place on Elmo throughout different seasons, and a big pair of shoes to tie....

Finally, a restaurant and a big market to encourage imaginative play and healthy eating habits.

Now for the Low Down From Becky....

My kids always love going to the science center.  I'm generally less enthusiastic about it for several reasons.

The first is cost.  Without a membership, admission is steep and doesn't include any of the special exhibits, the planetarium or any IMAX movies.  For example, if I wanted to take Jillian to the science center and the Sesame Street exhibit, and I didn't have the Living Social deal I'd purchased or a membership, it would cost me $14.95 for general admission for me, $11 for Jillian, $21.95 on top of general admission for me to take Jillian into the Sesame Street exhibit, and $18 for her admission into the Sesame Street exhibit.  For those who aren't counting, that is nearly $60 for one adult and one 4 year-old!

If I had a membership, which ranges in price considerably depending on who the membership is for (a student, an educator, a lone adult, a grandparent, a family) and how many people are on the membership, the Sesame Street exhibit would still cost me $10 for both of us to go in.

If you can find them, many local libraries offer something called a Culture Pass, which gives holders a week to use usually 3-4 free admissions.  That would be general admission and would not include the special exhibits or extras.

The second reason I'm less enthusiastic than my kids are about going to the science center is that there's only one of me and three of them...and guaranteed not a single one of them will want to be in the same exhibit at the same time.  Keeping track of more than one child in there is not easy.  And having a play date there? Forget it.  Not fun.

You will see adults and kids of all ages at the science center.  My personal opinion, having been there when my older two were as young as 7 and 4 themselves and several times between then and now (they are almost 15 and almost 12), going to the science center is considerably more fun - unless the special exhibit is geared toward little ones like the Sesame Street exhibit - with children who are at least 9 or 10, and considerably less fun with kids under 6.  Too much of the museum just goes right over the heads of the little ones.

Parking at Heritage Square is convenient.  It cost me $8 for...mmm...I think we were there for 4-5 hours. The science center validates parking as well.

The center has a restaurant on site.  Nikki and I brought our own food and water, though.  We picnicked just outside of the museum entry.

Phoenix Light Rail and Museum of Natural History

My youngest daughter has this thing about buses.  She loves them.  She always wants to "take the bus".  So, when we decided to head to the Museum of Natural History with a group of friends, we opted to take the light rail from the park and ride near Bethany Home all the way to the museum in Mesa.  One toddler didn't share my Jillian's love of buses, but all of the other kids loved the light rail.  I loved not having to drive the 50 minutes out to Mesa and back.

 This gigantic dinosaur greeted us when we entered the museum.

There's a place to build puzzles....

You can watch a giant storm sweep through a created landscape at regular intervals.  The kids loved that.

There are tunnels and an indoor jail to explore.  My kids could have spent hours playing here.

The outdoor area where kids can pan for gold was also quite popular.  It was another place that my kids could have happily spent well over an hour playing.

Back inside, the kids found this "green screen".  They could act as silly as they wanted to against a green backdrop and it would show up on a black and white screen for their friends' amusement.  I'd have to say that this was the hit of the museum for my crew.

All in all, the kids (spanning in age from 14 all the way down to 1) had a terrific time at this museum.  I would highly recommend it for a fun outing.

Cabela's

I'm not sure if it's just my kids who get giddy at the prospect of going to Cabela's in Glendale, but I had to share it here simply because:

1. they are ALWAYS thrilled to go (especially when their daddy takes them).

2.  like my 4-year-old was saying in the video above, they have sno-cones...and what can beat that?  The sno-cones at Cabela's are a special "daddy" treat; I don't buy them when I go.  So....our kids always prefer to go with my husband.

3.  it's indoors, and you can go without spending any money.  It's a nice, local, "beat the heat" field trip.  Folks in Arizona can appreciate those.

4.  besides the items Cabela's has for sale, there are lots of things to look at.  My littlest used to call it the "dead animal store".

Those are two of the big displays in the store.  There are heads decorating the walls all around the store.  They even have a small wildlife education museum.

And, going back to the video at the beginning, they have the "talking deer".  It does!  It talks to you.

5.  there are actually things you can do there (besides shop).  They have a very small indoor archery range, a laser target shooting game, and even a cafe (which is not pictured).  Kids can have birthday parties there (my oldest daughter actually had her 10th birthday party there) and enjoy a scavenger hunt.

Holiday Lights At McCormick Railroad Park

I wasn't sure what to expect when we went to Holiday Lights at McCormick Railroad Park, except that the parking lot wasn't very big so I wanted to be there early!  Our decision to go was somewhat last minute, as I tried to decide between that and something at Desert Ridge.  I have to say, though, that this will be a tradition my family continues every Christmas.  It was that fun.

We showed up, got a great parking spot, went to buy or train tickets, and having overheard someone say to someone else that they should get in line right then for the train rides beginning at 6PM, we followed suit.

We got in line pretty early, but we still had to wait for the fourth train before we boarded.  I turned around to look at the line behind us...

So, we boarded the train and we were off.  The ride lasts about 20 minutes.  The first 5-7 minutes go through the main part of the park, which, by the way, is a super fun place for kids of all ages to play.  The last 2/3 of the ride is where all of the light displays are.  All I can say is wow.  Whomever put that together did a really good job.  My kids were absolutely delighted!

They even had fake snow coming down off the end of one of the tunnels.  Words are simply inadequate to express how happy that made my kids!  (Those small white dots right by my daughter's hands are the snowflakes).

After we got off the train, we went to the museum train to visit Santa.  There was about a 30 minute wait and it did get hot in the train with so many people.

Following our visit with Santa, we let my littlest do some meet-and-greets with the costumed characters the park had walking amongst the crowd, take some photos in the cut-outs, and enjoy a carousel ride.

We concluded our visit in the model train museum.  My eldest would've happily stayed in there for hours if I'd let him.  He was completely captivated by all of the details in the model trains.  One of the big tracks was under construction.  One of the guys, who was working on what would eventually be a mountain, said that he was there 5-6 days a week and they expected that track and scenery to be done in about two years.

This truly was a wonderful family evening.  Next year, we will go on a day that my husband has off so we can enjoy it as a whole family.  On our way out, we looked and noticed that the line for the train had stretched all the way to the parking lot...

Adobe Mountain Railroad Park

We visited the Adobe Mountain Railroad Park last year and had so much fun that I scheduled a repeat field trip this year.  I simply cannot say enough good things about the park and the volunteers who staff it.

We started the field trip in the Park's Members' building, where one of the volunteers talked to the kids about the Park, the trains, real trains, and train safety.

After our presentation, we headed to the trains...

Even the little kids LOVED the trains!

The Railroad Park has over 16 miles of tracks.  We went out for a ride, going roughly 5 miles per hour.  We stopped and disembarked at the Museum.

After we looked through all of the train memorabilia, the huge electric trains and other items in the museum, we boarded the trains again.  The volunteers gave us two rides!

After the rides were over, the kids got to enjoy a play train, which was the Eagle project of homeschooled teenager Alex Bivens.

This field trip is so much fun.  The Railroad Park is open for public rides, complete with Christmas lights and hot cocoa, several days in December.  According the the volunteers, those evenings are very popular!