The New Children's Museum!!!

I don't know if I have ever mentioned it before but I've been so excited WAITING for the New Children's Museum to open since last year!!! Back when we went to visit Max back in Illinois, they have a FANTASTIC Children's Museum in Naperville that is so amazing. It is just such a fun place for children to go to with so many hands on activities to play, learn and be creative. I was so sad that we didn't have anything like that out here in San Diego. I started looking up any children's museums that would be opening up and found the information for the San Diego one. I just couldn't wait...and now it's open! I was off on Wednesday, so Keira and I ventured downtown on the Coaster. The picture above is Keira eating her snack on the Coaster. The coaster dropped us off at the Santa Fe Station on Kettner and we walked the rest of the way to Island where the Museum is. I should probably say Keira walked a little while and I walked the rest of the way pushing the stroller and carrying her! lol We stopped off to get a quick bite to eat at a little deli on the way and were on our way again...
...and there it was!!! The Children's Museum! We got to the door so anxious to get inside and see what kinds of fun things we could get into...and it was closed! YES! Closed!!! Can you believe it??? We trekked all the way across San Diego County and apparently, the museum is closed every Wednesday! Argh! I felt like we just got to Wallyworld and we were the Griswalds!

We ended up walking to Horton Plaza where Keira at least got to run around for a bit and burn off some of her crazy energy. After that, we headed back to the Coaster.
We told the Conductor what happened and he was such a nice guy, he let Keira be the conductor for the day! She got to sit in the conductor's seat and blow the horn. CHOO CHOO! She LOVED it!
After she drove the train (just kidding), she got to let everyone off the train. The conductor showed her the buttons to push to get the doors to open. She had so much fun being the conductor...
Here she is smiling for the camera for a picture for Daddy with her Hello Kitty "boppy bop" (lollipop) that we sent to his phone to see what we were up to for the day.

Well, I wasn't going to let that stop us! I decided that we were going to try again the next day. We headed down to the Children's Museum this afternoon after her nap to try our luck again. This time I decided to drive. YAY! It was open! It is a great place for children to play...and for all of you with toddlers and young children, this is mainly the age that will LOVE this place! It is a little different from the Children's Museum in Illinois. The one there is more geared towards fun and hands-on activities like the space theatre at Balboa Park. This Children's Museum does have some hands on activities, but it definitely IS more geared towards art.

Keira put on an apron and got to work painting an old V'Dub outside on the patio. It was kind of hard to do because she is such a neat freak, she wanted to keep stopping to wash her hands every time she got a little bit of paint on them. I finally had to convince her that it was ok to have it on her hands...although just barely!

After that, we headed upstairs to a little area where you can make little wooden cars and put them on a ramp to race them.
Here she is racing her masterpiece that she put together....with a little help from Mommy of course.
There are a few little areas with bouncy, cushioned pillows to tumble around over . Including a great room full of pillows and mattresses piled up for kids to jump up and down on. Keira and I did some jumping in there for a while until we were pooped. After that, Keira wanted to try rock climbing. Here she is admiring the artwork on the wall of the rock climbing wall.
Here she is climbing up the wall. She was able to get to about the center of the small wall and up maybe two foot pegs. Not bad for a 2 1/2 year old! lol

Well, it was definitely worth the trek downtown even if we ended up making it two days in a row! I highly recommend it for all of your parents with toddlers and small children. There are lots of bubbles on the patio, art tables for kids to do crafts like painting and play with clay. There is even a little Ipod shaped booth on one of the floors with a little disco ball that music plays in for the kids to dance around in privacy. They SHOULD have had a little sneaky window that the parents could use to take pictures of the kids dancing without them knowing...I know...sneaky :)

Have fun!!!