City Museum

My kids have been to a lot of "kid places". However, the City Museum, by far, is their favorite place ever. It's a "museum" built by an architect. It's basically a 10 story giant hamster cage with tunnels, mazes, slides, and  ton of stuff to climb on and explore--and not just kids--there were plenty of adults wearing knee pads weaving though the various tunnels of the museum. It was amazing. Everyday my kids ask when we are going back. 

 You can take stairs from one floor to the next, or climb through tunnels like above. You can also ride a slide from the top of the 10th floor down to the 1st floor of the museum. 

Juliet wasn't really sure about all the climbing. We mostly took the stairs. Leah often climbed or took the slides. After Juliet disappearing 2 days before, Leah decided that she needed a turn, too. She took a slide from the third floor down. Juliet and I were going to follow, but Juliet got too scared about how steep it was and refused to go down, even on my lap. I told Leah to stay right where she was. I assumed the slide ended on the second floor, but couldn't find her anywhere. Luckily, the museum is staffed with people trained to assist freaked out parents, and helped me find her. Somehow, the slide started and ended on the third floor even though it was at least a 15 foot slide. 

 Juliet was nervous about a lot of the climbing, but liked climbing some parts. Regardless, the museum had enough going on, and things to do at every level, that Juliet never felt left out when she wasn't climbing like Leah was. 

 Juliet had a lot of fun building this chair while Leah played on a giant net trampoline above her. 

 They also had a huge roof with even more to do. Juliet was obsessed with the stepping stones. There was another huge slide--at least 50 feet that Leah had fun going down. We also went on the Ferris Wheel which was slightly older and much faster up close that I thought it would be. Though it had a pretty view from the top. 

 Leah climbed this thing and it reminded me of a scene from Peter Pan. 

 They also had another giant outdoor section that they had a lot of fun playing in. There was also a bar that served beers that you could take outside. It was much appreciated after a long day. 

 There was about 10 minutes left before closing. The girls were playing on a giant whale, and Leah spotted this little cave. She asked to go in, and I said okay. I assumed it was just a little cave, but apparently there is an entire underground tunnel system. I'm not sure how an adult would get through this. So, anyway, I thought it was a cave, and told Leah and Juliet to come out after a few minutes. There was no response. Another little girl crawled out and told me they were in the tunnels. Then the museum announced it was closing. After about 2 minutes, I started panicking. Then a nice worker walked them back to me. They must be pretty well versed on clearing out kids. 

 This Museum was awesome. I wish we had more than 2.5 hours here. We easily could have spent the day. We hope to go back one day! 

Later this night, Juliet "drown-did". It's too funny of a story to not record. Juliet has been "swimming" for a bit this summer. Her swimming mostly consists of pushing off a corner wall and swimming to the other corner wall in a pool. However, she can do it in 10 feet deep water. I've seen her swim more than a few feet without struggling at all. After this crazy day, the girls begged to go to the pool at our hotel--coolest hotel ever--converted from a 100 year old YMCA. I said yes. Our hotel had happy hour where every guest got 3 (small) drinks free between certain hours. I got 2 beers to take down while they swam--probably 12 ounces of beer total to be clear--nothing crazy. I sat on the side and Leah swam. Juliet was prancing in the shallow end. The pool had a pretty steep drop off and Juliet was quickly up to her neck. I told her to come back to the stairs. I probably had a little bit of a worried tone because I could see how steep the slope of the bottom of the pool was. Juliet looked right at me, started crying, and then just totally collapsed and went under water. I had no choice but to jump into the pool, fully clothed, and also wearing sandals and pull her out. We got out and Juliet was just totally hysterical. She kept crying and saying, "I drown-did and you didn't do anything!"  As I'm sitting there soaking wet. So, we had to walk of shame out, 5 minutes after we arrived. Me, all wet, carrying 2 beers as my kid keeps yelling at me, "I drowned and you didn't care!" I was surprised that nobody came and knocked on our door that night for a welfare check.