Children's Museum of Play

A couple weekends ago, on a whim, we decided to head to Rochester for the Strong National Museum of Play.  We weren't sure what to expect, but thought it would be a nice change.  (Though is was pretty expensive).  I don't have to tell you...the kids loved it.  And this was Abbey's place.  She loves the zoo of course, but this was her thing.  She could run around, try and touch stuff and just have fun.  Above, these cars were in the first room.  Abbey dived right in.  If you look at her face, you can see she's making driving noises :)

She loved opening these doors which had sea related letters of the alphabet.  SURPRISE she'd say.  In the same room, Adam just loved this contraption in which you threw a ball in and it went through some crazy loops up on the ceiling.

Sesame Street!  I thought this was so neat...the kids weren't that into the stoop once they realized the door wouldn't open.

But the Elmo's World room was a hit!  Abbey loved the Elmo sized bed :)

Hard to tell, but Adam is on the screen with the COUNT.  It was pretty neat, if they stood behind the wall, it put them in the show.  Adam just grinned from ear to ear.

Big Bird's nest!  Abbey loved it.  Adam liked it, but I'd thought he'd get more excited since he loves to imitate Big Bird in his nest.  You never know with kids!

Adam in the Muppets taxi.  He was pretty excited about this.

Adam is always drawn to chess pieces and boards.  Future hobby?  I like that they are "playing" it together.  We had to drag him away.  And while I did that, Abbey took off past her father and RAN,  Yeah, we even had to get the workers to help us find her ...YIKES.  It was pretty scary.  This is going to be the rest of our lives with Miss A.

I put the camera away for a while to focus on keeping Abbey in sight.  There was a Dora room and a huge "literature" themed room.  Todd took Adam down the superhero side while I followed Abbey up into the pirate ship...into this "sandbox".  Not real sand, but little silicon beads.  She LOVED it.  I had to eventually pull her out of it!

So hard at work filling those buckets.

We went upstairs to the hall of fame area, but Mommy and Daddy were BEAT!  Abbey even took a rest back downstairs, flopping down in the movie area.  There's a carousel in the front lobby that we tried to walk past, but the kids really wanted to go on it.  So they did.  Adam loves sitting on the benches of carousels.  Seriously.  (Though at first he went for the only row of "little" horses a bunch of big kids started taking them so we moved on).  Abbey climbed right on a big horse and I stood next to her.  She was grinning from ear to ear.  LOVED IT.  As we left, I expected a fight from Abbey, but Adam had a hard time leaving.  I'm so used to Abbey giving a fit, I kind of have it down to a science.  With Adam we were unprepared!  He did NOT want to leave.  And he was half obnoxious all the way home because he was ticked we did!  We had fun, though it wasn't quite we expected.  A once or twice    a year thing.