Spring Break 2011

For obvious reasons, we didn't go anywhere for Spring Break this year. But, I still wanted to get the kids out of the house and have some fun, so we tried to find some things to do.
The week before the break, Zander's class went on a field trip to the Arizona Mining Mineral Museum. He couldn't stop talking about how great it was, and asked if we could go back there. I told him that I would look into it. So, I found their website, and discovered just how inexpensive it is. Only $2 for adults, and kids under 18 are FREE. So, I figured, why not?
For some reason, I didn't take any pictures inside the museum. But here's some from outside.




It was pretty neat. They had all kinds of rocks and minerals on display. And there were some really inexpensive things in the gift shop - starting with polished rocks for $.25. So, I let the kids each pick something out. They thought it was a fun time.

When we were done, we walked across the street to the state capital mall. I thought I had remembered there being picnic benches where we could eat, but I couldn't find any. But we did find a place to sit in the shade for a little lunch that I had packed. Brandon met us there and we had a nice time.
We could hear shouts coming from the capital, and we wondered what was going on, but we didn't want to get close enough to find out.
As we were getting ready to leave, a news reporter stopped us and asked if she could ask us a few questions. We weren't sure what to expect, but we agreed. She asked if we were involved in the protest at all. We told her we had been to the museum and were just there for lunch. She said that she wanted to talk to someone with kids who wasn't involved... then she asked if we thought that people should involve their kids - as young as 1st graders - in politics. Of course, we told her "no". Brandon's "sound bite" was "politics is a nasty business. Why involve kids in something that's nasty?"
Anyway, we ended up on the evening news. Apparently, the protesters brought in busloads of kids to protest immigration and education reform. Or something like that. It was kind of silly how they made it sound like we were upset about it or something. We didn't even know what was going on. Oh well. It was fun anyway.

The next day, we had some more fun. I had my doctor's appointment in Scottsdale, so we drove all the way out there. Earlier in the week, we had gone to the library and gotten a culture pass for the Arizona Museum for Youth. Since we were on that side of town, I thought we would use it. The museum is less than a mile from the temple, so we went there first. They have a really neat art display in the visitor's center. It is Book of Mormon Images by Walter Rane. I thought the kids would like it. We spent some time looking at them, and the kids each picked their favorite. Zander's was the one of Nephi and Laban. Ady and Ainzlee liked the ones with Jesus. My favorite is Captain Moroni.

After the temple, we had some lunch, and then went to the museum.
It had been at least a year since I'd been there, and they've completely remolded since then. They have some really neat things. There's a whole section right now about Fairy Tales. The kids got to dress up as different Fairy Tale stories, and make different crafts to go along with it. (I should mention that this was St. Patrick's day - that's why the kids are in green. Ady picked the camo shirt because, it's green, of course ;)

Puppet shows



Little Red Riding Hood




Mad Hatter Hats



Princesses (check out the SHOES!)


Frogs and Fairies




3 Little Pigs


Baseball



PLAY TIME




All in all, it was a great time. They have lots of fun, hands on things for kids to do. And with the culture pass, I only paid $7 for us to get it. Can't beat that!