Museum of Play in Rochester, New York!

I haven't posted here in a looooong time!  Other social media is consuming my time and blog posts!  I'll try and catch up in the next little bit, but things might be out of order.  Here are some photos from the boys' trip that Parker and I took with Scott and Milo at the beginning of August!  We went to the Museum of Play in Rochester, New York!  We hadn't done anything like this before but I thought might be fun so we left early on Saturday morning, stopped for a quick lunch on the way, and arrived mid-afternoon!  We checked into our hotel, which was about 15 minutes away from the museum, and then spent the next 4 hours wandering around and checking out all the crazy exhibits and fun stuff.  It was cool because there were a lot of interactive things they could mess with, but there was also a lot of information (like at a real museum, where artifacts are encased and they have a little description).  So as the kids get older, they could keep going back and would be able to get more out of each visit, participating in "older" activities and eventually (hopefully) reading the info and learning stuff!  I'd definitely go back.

Here it is!

 THE MUSEUM OF PLAY.

 Parker before we went in.

 Milo before we went in.  It was actually pretty cheap -- I think it was around $48 for the 4 of us.  And we could have stayed all day if we wanted.  The website says most people average around 4 hours per visit, which is almost exactly what we did and it seemed to be enough for the kids.

 The first room we went into had this crazy contraption where you loaded a ball into a little bucket and then pulled a rope.  The pulleys would raise the ball into the air and dump it out into a little track and it would travel around the ceiling, kind of like a Rube Goldberg device.  Parker thought it was the awesomest thing EVER.  He was kind of nervous when we went in because of the noises and all the new stuff, but this brought him out of his shell a bit.

Milo and Scott doing a driving simulator. 

 Parker checking himself out in a wacky funhouse mirror.

 They had one of those rooms where everything was tilted, which was super crazy awesome.  I think we went through it about 700 times.  

 This is a neat air cannon, where you aim it at a target up near the ceiling that has a bunch of shiny tassel things hanging on it.  You pull the back of the cannon and let go and it fires a small puff of air, and then it moves the tassels so you can see how good your aim was.

 They had a pretty cool Sesame Street section.  

Here's Parker in front of the Sesame Street doors, giving the thumbs up of approval.

  

 Driving a taxi.  

 They also have a whole section about trains, which is one of Parker's obsessions.  So I think he enjoyed this a little bit.  Here he is checking out all the train models and wondering if they are VIA trains, or maybe freight trains, or possibly even steam engines depending on their shapes.

 A train table.

 Probably Parker's favourite part of the museum (although he claims the merry-go-round, which you'll see at the end, was his favourite).  They have a little toy train thing that drives around a miniature track 8 or 9 times.  I think it was $4 for us to have a ride.

Everyone looks psyched to be on the train!

 This room had all kinds of crazy experiments and games based on physics.  This one had a long ramp where you would set the launch distance, and your ball would fly off the end and hit a bell that would make a tone.  Parker thought it was pretty cool.

 They had a whole section on comic books, which I thought was super crazy awesome, but Parker was not impressed.  He just kind of glossed through it.  I wish we could have spent more time because I really wanted to read about all the historical things they had and check everything out!

 One thing that Milo did, which was pretty funny, was an Incredible Hulk style gamma ray that gave him super strength.  There was a big heavy rock thing that couldn't be moved.  And then you push the gamma ray button and green light shines down on you, obviously endowing you with super strength.  Then you try and lift the rock thing and it was light as a feather.  Afterwards Milo was concerned that he still had his super strength, and he wanted it out, which was pretty funny.

This section (although hard to tell from the photos) was based on fairy tales.  So they had all kinds of activities and mazes and stuff with fair tale themes.  This was a net maze climber thing with a Jack and the Beanstalk theme.  Parker and Milo went through it a bunch of times and had a blast. 

The upstairs has an entire section devoted to retro toys and video games.  Parker and Milo really enjoyed the Slinkies, which was pretty funny because we have some at home and they don't seem nearly as enjoyable and impressive.  We probably spent about 10 minutes or so just watching Slinkies go down the stairs. 

 And these are photos from the video game hall of fame.  Again, we kind of breezed through it pretty quickly, but I would have loved to have spent more time here, reading all the details and stories.  And they're building an expansion next April, I think, so we should definitely go back to check it out.  We used to have that Superman Atari game!

Our grandpa had this Atari and we used to play it all the time.  Classic.

They actually have a section of classic arcade games that you can play.  I was kind of disappointed that they weren't free (although I think they were only $0.25 or something).  But it seems like they should be free to me.  Here's a photo of the Star Wars arcade game, which was the greatest thing ever back in the day.  Our parents used to take us on a lot of vacations when we were younger and I always remembered how the different hotels would have random, tiny arcade rooms.  We'd beg for quarters to go play arcade games for what-seemed-like hours (but was probably closer to half an hour at the most) and one hotel in one random city actually had this arcade game.  I was only able to play it a few times but it pretty much blew my mind.  And then our parents would take us to this place called CJ Barrymore's in the States every now and then, and they actually had one of these arcade machines as well.  Best game ever.

They had a Nintendo 64 set up with a Mario game that Parker thought was pretty cool.

 On our way out, we stopped at the play grocery store.  I actually wished we would have done this at the beginning because the kids LOVED it.  They were a bit tired and ready to go, but luckily we coerced them into checking it out.  If we had gone in the beginning instead of the end I bet they would have spent half an hour here just shopping, checking out their groceries, and shopping some more.

 When you go in, they give you instructions to get a cart, find five items, run them through the checkout (scanning them and everything), and then put them away.  

 Trying to weigh some meat in the fake butcher shop.

 They had EVERYTHING, and it was all play food so you could grab whatever you wanted and just throw it in the cart.

 "Do I want the steak or the filet mignon?"

 Parker ended up choosing the most random foods ever, but scanning them was pretty awesome.

 And then on the way out, the kids went around on the merry-go-round a few times with the remaining tickets we had for a ride!  Parker loved it!  I get motion sickness so I stayed on the sidelines, took a few photos, and bought some small souvenirs at the gift shop.

 

  

Some post-museum maze action at Applebee's for dinner.  We also played tic-tac-toe.