The Magic House

February 1-3:  The first weekend in February we got to take a trip to visit the Caseys.  We'd been trying to pick a date for awhile and finally found one that would work.  We drove down on Friday night (getting there LATE).  Sadie managed to wake up Hannah and it took the girls awhile to calm down and go to sleep...

 

Saturday was pretty laid back.  We wanted to visit the Magic House (if you think you're seeing a trend with the Children's Museum visits--you are!  Our membership was up in February and I wanted to use it as much as we could!)  Tim had a girl's basketball game that he needed to be at for work so Marc stayed back to go with him and Liz and I ventured to the Magic House... with 5 kids!  We were pretty exhausted by the time it was done.

 

I would vote the Magic House "best children's museum for older kids."  There was plenty for the pre-school crowd but the Magic House also had a lot of exhibits for school age children.  I think we will probably go back for sure when the kids are bigger.  One of Sadie's favorite exhibits was a mystery game.  You collected lots of different clues to figure out who stole a painting.  She LOVED it! 

 



 

 

Our night was a relaxing one... we made pizzas and got to hang out and visit.  On Sunday we went to church then out to eat at Cracker Barrel then it was home for Superbowl!  It was a bit of a whirlwind weekend but we always love spending time with friends.

This was our last museum visit... and probably will be for awhile!  We loved having our membership--it was so worth it!  We made a total of 13 museum visits during the year (at 7 different museums).  Our membership cost us $110 (for the reciprocal membership--good to all museums in the "Children's Museum Association).  I figured that we would have spent a total of $437 on museum trips--many of those trips I was only paying for 3 or 4 people, this also did not include the free passes that we were able to let our friends use.  It was fun and it was worth it for our family. 

Will we do it again? Probably not... unfortunately they are changing the museum association rules and as of this year you get limited half price visits to museums other than the one where your membership is based.  Believe it or not there are still a couple museums in our area that we haven't visited yet--I will watch for groupons and free days (and don't worry baby #4 will get to have the "children's museum" experience).  Marc told me after our Chicago trip that he would be okay if he never went in another children's museum again...  This year's splurge for our family is a Zoo pass--excited for some ZOO FUN!