Mommy's Surprise

Annika's school just had their Spring Break- which was all of Friday and Monday. (isn't that unusual? I thought Spring Break was supposed to be a week-long break) Since the girlies were sad about their Cousins being gone I surprised them with a fun trip.


I didn't tell the Girlies where we were going...just that it was going to be a long trip. We were most of the way to Madison before Annika realized that was where we were heading.


Where did I take them?


The Children's Museum in Madison!



It's a cute little museum very close to the Capitol Building in "downtown" Madison. We've been to Madison many, many times but we'd never managed to check out this particular place.



Here's the funny thing....the first exhibit we visited was the One the Girlies enjoyed the most. I made them go through the entire museum (okay...that didn't take very long since it is very small). The Shadow Room nearly made them cry. Oops. It was really dark in there and I couldn't see our shadows after the bright light flashed. They were the happiest when we went back to the first room. I just sat and watched them play. They loved the pulley system with clothes line - and moving pieces of fabric back and forth between the balconies. Nice!




A perpetual-ish sort of machine. The crank was hard for me to turn so it didn't capture the girls' interest. I thought it looked more like artwork than anything...

Water is fun! (but I think we already knew that). This is in the first exhibit.

Mock-up of Madison. The kids are supposed to put in roads & buildings (which were different colors based on what purpose they served- education, housing, etc). Trees to create parks. BUT the kids just mostly drove the trucks around ...like little kids will do! (I think it was supposed to teach about city planning).

Crane- you could move it up or down or side-to-side.

Annika catching magnetic fish from the Dream Machine in the background.As requested by Oma- I took the Girlies out to lunch....lunch of their choice. They chose SUSHI- yes they did! I suggested a sandwich shop closer to the museum. Sooooo....sushi it was! Thank you Oma!

Yummy Sushi!
Even Ava ate a few pieces of sushi! She's always had a difficult time eating the nori (seaweed) on the sushi rolls but she tried today. She also loved the tamago (it's kind of like scrambled eggs) and her favorite? The pickled ginger!

We were on our way back home after a pit stop at Whole Foods to pick up yummy treats...and something for Daddy too! We were sad he couldn't come on this fun outing. It was a long day but it was lots of fun. (by the way...if you're curious...Madison is a two hour drive, one-way)