Museum Fun

In the last few weeks, the boys and I (along with Gramma and Papa) were able to visit some museums in the twin cities - for free! This is part of the twin cities library's program called Museum Adventure Pass. If you're in the area, you should definitely check it out. You can "check out" passes for 2-4 people to visit a variety of museums, at no cost. We are about 45 minutes from the cities, which makes it a perfect day trip or overnight at my parents' if we choose.

The first museum we visited was the Jackson Street Roundhouse, a train museum and working turntable. There a half a dozen different railroad cars that you can walk through or even pretend to drive. They also have a shop where they work on restoring very old train cars. The boys had a ball as they are both "train brains." It runs in the family as my grandfather was a railroad man who worked for the Grand Trunk railroad.

This is the turntable that revolves around to store cars in the roundhouse. We got to ride the turntable which was pretty cool.

Elijah loved going in the different train cars. He's a very tactile kid and loves to manipulate things.

The second museum we went to is the Bell Museum of Natural History. I went to this museum myself as a child. Elijah was less entertained here as it's less hands on and more visual. They have a touch and see room that both boys enjoyed though.

Here's Ethan dressed as a bear and sleeping in a bear den.

The dioramas are wonderfully done, but Elijah wasn't too impressed. He did like this loon one though as he has a stuffed loon at home that he used to be quite attached to.

I'm hoping to go to an art museum or two in the near future using these passes. I can't pass up anything free!