Day 1 was Crown Center & Union Station. We had fun. But it was exhausting.
Science City at Union Station
Claire may be a little young for Science City. Definitely something I will have to remember for when she's a little older. I think some 3 yr olds would be fine with it, but not mine. Anaya liked pretty much everything, I think if we didn't have Claire with us, we probably would've stayed longer, but she was done and Anaya had seen everything even if we hadn't spent quite as long as she would've liked at some of the stations. I think Claire's favorite thing was this spinning table in the Astronaut zone. I really thought she would like the water table, but we could barely get her to look at it. It took us about 2 hours to see everything and if I hadn't already decided we were going to do a lot more, we probably could've been done downtown after that.
Crown Center
Since Megan at The Nerd Nest always talks about d'Bronx pizza and we don't have one near our house, I decided to take the opportunity of being at Crown Center to give it a try and it was MUCH cheaper than Crayola Cafe which is where Anaya wanted to go. (She ended up being happy with my decision and has declared d'Bronx her favorite pizza place.) Since we're being vegetarians for the week, I ordered a tomato, onion and green pepper slice (half of which I removed so Claire would eat it) and Anaya ordered green pepper and jalapeno. Then we went down the hall to their free Dinosaur exhibit. It was nicer than some of the other free children's exhibits they have had down there.
Kaleidoscope
Anaya specifically requested that we go to Kaleidoscope this summer. I have to tell you though...I kind of hate that place. And Claire seems to agree with me. But Anaya LOVES it so I managed Claire while Anaya ran around and made a ton of crafts from leftovers from Hallmark. I actually like the IDEA of Kaleidoscope, but in reality it's just too loud and busy and Claire was just not interested to the point that I was picking her up off the floor from a screaming and kicking tantrum TWICE. I could understand her frustration but she wasn't understanding the concept of just deal for 20 minutes and then we'll do something you'll enjoy. Anaya left with a bag full of crafts and Claire had a bag with a fish she colored, a piece of paper with Chipette stickers on it and a 2 black light drawings that I mostly did.
SeaLife Aquarium
What Claire was wanting to do when we were in Kaleidoscope was go to the Aquarium. We got season passes back in April and this is the fourth time that Claire has been there. She saw it earlier when we were eating and all she wanted to do was go see the fishies already. She was making fish faces at me and saying "please" and she just wanted to see the fish. Anaya did not want to see the fish, but Claire dealt with Kaleidoscope so it was Anaya's turn to deal with Claire's favorite activity. We flew through there in less than 45 minutes. (And I took only 19 pictures. I mean, it is our FOURTH time there, how many pictures of fish does one really NEED and we'd already been doing STUFF for 5 hours at that point - I was done.) Claire knew what she wanted to see and where everything was and would stop when she wanted to look but otherwise just kept right on going. Then we had to get cookies at Panera because that's what you DO after going to the Aquarium according to Claire.
So, I just realized as I was looking through my pictures for this post that I had left my camera on the P setting most of the day which lets it pick the Aperture and Shutter Speed and I really should've had it on Shutter Speed Priority because I have lots of pictures where Claire is doing things and her hands are blurs.
WOW that is a ton of stuff to do in one day! No way could I handle all of that: you're a super mom. I didn't know that Crown Center has a free dino exhibit right now! Eliza is going to be so excited!
ReplyDeleteWe haven't been to the aquarium yet either. Mostly because we hear it's not that great, but it super expensive. We're considering a little weekend trip to the Omaha Zoo, and they have an awesome aquarium, so we might just go with that. But if you have season passes, it must be good! Do you think the aquarium is a good value?
As for Science City, the only way that works well with Jonas and Eliza (because they're such different ages) is if we tag team. We do parts of it all together, and then we'll split up for awhile. That way Jonas can run around and be crazy and Eliza can concentrate on the things that interest her.
I'm so glad you guys liked d'Bronx. We eat it waaay to much. In fact, we ate it tonight after a major homecookin' fail. d'Bronx to the rescue!
I don't think the aquarium is worth the money that I spent on it. I bought the season pass purely to get out of standing in the line, plus Claire loves fish. It doesn't really make any sense, but I would rather spend more money to get the season pass because if I had just paid for our admission I would have really felt ripped off. At least this way we can go as many times as we want to "get our value". All that to say, if you're going to Omaha anyways, go see their aquarium and skip SeaLife.
DeleteWe had a zoo membership last year and that was definitely a better value - with the pass I was okay with going and just visiting one section of the zoo and then going back a month of so later to see another part of the zoo.
I did leave Anaya on her own at Science City for a while, but she is 12 so that's kind of okay. I really wish that I had taken Anaya there when she was a little younger, I think she would've loved it.
I should have clarified that by "split up", I do mean that each kid always has an adult with them. Hah!
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