Christmas 2012: Memphis Children's Museum

On December 21st we headed out from Harrisonburg to go to West Memphis, Arkansas.  It was a very long journey.  We started at 4:00am and arrived at our destination at 9:00pm local time (there was an hour time change during the drive so it felt like 10:00 to us).  But we made it!

However, being cooped up in a car for that long in one day meant that we needed to get out and run the next day.  So during breakfast I did a bit of research and found out the location, fees, and hours of the local children's museum.  A quick change of clothes and we were headed out to get as much play in as possible before nap time really set in.

It was a HUGE museum!  I would not be surprised if it filled almost a city block (with the parking lot included, it might have).  They had a disco called Sir Dance A Lot (Grace loved it and made me go in and dance with her many times).

 Grace knows that she is a princess...so she found her rightful spot atop a castle.

 Glen, in awe, staring up at her royal beauty.  And wondering just how on earth she got up there.

 They had a real fire truck that the kids could ride in and climb on.  They even had coats and boots that the kids could put on.

 The kids are in a house, looking out the window at me.

 Above is Glen's hand, my hand, and Grace's hand.

 They had pipes that if you hit them with a flip-flop they made noise.  Glen of course had a blast with anything that he could make lots of noise with.  Whomp, whomp whomp!

In addition to the fire truck they also had a real police car that the kids could explore.  It must have been in quite an accident in it's working days.  The doors were missing and the trunk was gone.

This place was HUGE...they had a Kroger in there with 4 check out lines with working registers that would cough up a receipt of what you scanned.  They had a river in there to show how water wheels worked, and with magnetic fish so that the kids could go "fishing" in the river.  A tornado simulator, a earthquake simulator (complete with little wooden building blocks), scaffolding that the children could climb up, a FedEx airplane to simulate sending packages around the world, and a train station to name just a few of the items.

The kids were completely worn out afterward, but it was a great way to get out the wiggles that were built up from the prior day.