My oldest enjoys a day at the Strong museum

Hanging out at the Strong Museum, also known as the National Museum of Play in Rochester.

We took the kids to an awesome kids museum in Rochester, NY. As you can see Noah really enjoyed it.









I shared these photos as part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby and Friday Daydreaming at R We There Yet.

Gothic Quarter - Barcelona, Spain

Walking through the Gothic district of Barcelona, Spain not far from Las Ramblas is like taking a step back in time. It used to be known as the "Cathedral District" and it's what is left of the Roman and middle ages. The architecture amazing here.

I enjoyed the Gothic area for many reasons. One because it's a great place to cool off in the hot months! Even when it was 89 degrees outside it seemed only 69 degrees. The buildings are so close together at times the sun can get into the streets making it much cooler. It did open up occasionally in common areas.





Another reason we loved it here was the Pablo Picaso museum is located here.  I saw on some websites that they say to skip this museum.  I on the other hand think it's a fascinating museum.  I think Picaso is somewhat of a sick freak and one of the room in particular will verify this, but other than that one room it's great. (Keep this in mind when taking children here. If your a prude American like me, then you will not want your kids seeing that room!)


We enjoyed the off beat feel and the randomness. It's obviously a tourist area, but it did not have a touristy feel.  We saw these little statues on the way to the Picaso Museum outside of a store.

I can't wait to take my kids to Barcelona someday.

Museum of Natural History in NYC

The Museum of Natural History in NYC has tons of dinosaurs skelatons, plus lots of other interesting stuff. For my kids ages the dinosaurs and stuffed animals were the most interesting part. We were able to get in free by using the Blue Star Museum initiative for military families. Always remember when taking children to a museu to keep the expectations low. I knew going in we would only be there two hours at the most and we didn't quite make it. This should factor in when deciding if an activity is worth the cost.

Enjoy a 10% discount on a City Sights NY Uptown, Downtown, Night or Brooklyn Tour! Use code: 10OFFCS

National Museum of play in Rochester, NY

While on our very long road trip adventure this summer we found ourselves at the National Museum of Play, also know as the Strong Museum in Rochester, NY.  This museum was awesome.  We stayed all day until it closed.  It is for children and from the their website I thought it would only be for little kids.  When we got there however I realized what a poor job their website does, because my nine year old had a blast!  This museum had an entire area full of mind bender/hands on puzzle things, even the grandparents had fun in this room!  It was very challenging.  I wish I had gotten a picture.  My kids spent an hour or two in there.  Here are some pictures of the museum that I did get.

The farm area complete with an ellaborate chicken egg harvesting set up.



They have a "sand" area.  It is not actually sand, but instead tiny little pieces of plastic or something like that.  You don't get dirty!


They have a dress up area along with a stage.

This was an area that you had to find up stairs that had a giant chess board.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how much my kids played with this.  I didn't think they would be that into it.

This is near the Sesame Street zone.  These are pipes that make music.

This area was good for older kids.  This is a ball contraption and I would be embarrassed to admit here how long it took myself and two other grown ups to figure this thing out and then explain it to my kids.  I'm just going to focus on the fact that we did figure it out!

Boston Children's museum

 The New Balance Climb at Boston Children's Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Boston Children's Museum has to be the best children's museum we have ever visited. It is huge and there is an endless amount of things to do! Plan a full day for this.

Our son was not even two years old when we were in Boston for a wedding. We stayed an extra few days to make a little vacation out of it. One of the days we spent at this museum. I had heard it was good, but to see it in person is outstanding. Although our son was so young at the time we spent 2/3 of our day there. He kept busy the whole time. Some of our favorite areas were the construction zone, the play lab, and the climbing area.

For more info click here.

Portland Children's Museum

After hearing a variety of things about the Portland Children's Museum we finally tried it out for ourselves.  To be honest I had low expectations, but quickly realized I had heard wrong.  I thought the whole place was fantastic and regretted not getting over there sooner. I thought each room was really well laid out so that it didn't seem too crowed, even though there were tons of people there that day. They have a baby room, water room, digging room, music room and more. They had a few live shows going on while we were there. I practically dragged my children out of there!


I noticed on their website that they have art classes for children 2 - 12 and they also have a variety of camps. For more info click here.

Portland

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