What the heck? Let's head across the river.

I got one post together today, might as well do another.

Last month, I was trying to figure out what to do with the kids one day. A few people had been suggesting going to the Canadian Children's Museum, located inside the Canadian Museum of Civilization. We have memberships to three other museums in town and I figured that there was no need to go to a different museum where I'd have to pay (I know...skinflint!). Well, I finally caved and drove across the bridge to see what the fuss was about.

Wow. The museum itself isn't all that big, but it's stunning how much stuff is packed (in an organized fashion, to boot) in the space. The whole thing is structured under a global travel theme, where the kids are given passports when they go in and they get to stamp it every time they visit a certain part of the museum. I didn't count the number of stamp stations but it might have been over 20. To hit the highlights, the kids:

acted out a scene or two at the theatre which was equipped with costumes and a stage with curtains

hopped aboard a Pakistani bus and a tuk-tuk

painted some pictures art at the museum's studio

played some Nigerian bongo drums

donned builder outfits and assembled part of a wall

went to a toy store and assembled some puzzles

sat down for a game of Parcheesi then stood up again upon seeing the long list of rules

created their own adinkra cloth pattern at a clothier's store

performed an Indonesian shadow puppet show

sat on a fake camel

crawled through a pyramid

used a working crane (!!!) to load and unload cargo from a boat

prepared and served fake sushi at a restaurant

delivered parcels to some of the storefronts in the museum

Yeah, if that looks like a long list, try doing it with two mobile chickens. YIKES! Max says his favourite part was the sushi, but he spent well over an hour working on that boat. Apparently, there were mops to swab the deck, but he only had eyes for the crane. Leo was deadly every time I let him out of the stroller. At his most devious, he had discovered a chess set on the ground (that I had yet to see!) and, one by one, was smuggling the pieces into our stroller. Eventually, I found some pieces, but then I had to find where they came from. Then the fun part was finding all of the pieces he had taken.

Thankfully, school had started by then so there wasn't much of a crowd at all. There might have been 25-30 people in there at any one time (except when this tour group of seniors/foreigners came through taking pictures of each other climbing all over everything...that was weird) so it was really relaxing. Summer must have been bonkers. By the time we got home, both kids were completely spent and I seem to remember scoring over 2 hours of simultaneous sleep out of them. Truth be told, that was worth at least three times the cost of admission :) :)

And now for the best part, the photo evidence: