Salt Lake B-day

In lieu of a birthday party for Hadley this year, we opted to do a family weekend in SLC. She was very excited about it, but clarified, "but you know I'll do a princess party next year, right?" Sure thing. We made it to our hotel right at check-in time, and Hadley promptly locked herself in the bathroom! It was a pocket door with a strange "handle" and she could not figure out how to open it. What a start to her weekend!

After the hotel's handyman freed her, we headed for a "fun center" with rides and games. It was nearly 100 degrees outside, and unfortunately, their AC seemed to not be working. And even more unfortunate, about half of their games and rides were also not working. Adults were disappointed, but the kids didn't seem to mind! Owen found this dinosaur hunting game and didn't want to leave.

He also really enjoyed the go-karts.

Glow-golf was more Hadley's speed. With some guidance from Dad, she did pretty well, and has already asked to go again sometime.

The main attraction on Saturday was the Museum of Natural Curiosity. We walked over from our hotel shortly after it opened at 10am and didn't leave until after 5! The kids absolutely loved it. Here is some of Archimedes' Playground, highlighting simple machines in a very fun and interactive way;

treetop rope bridges to explore the rainforest;

and a drop of blood; oh the irony of swimming in a germ-covered ball pit while looking for the elusive, lone, disease-fighting white blood cell.

There were some physics lessons, like the earthquake table (Hadley loved building and rebuilding our Lincoln log houses and shaking them apart over and over), trying to squeeze as hard as a python, and controlling water flows (Owen was very invested in his pipe project).

We had a great time in the music area, especially the personal orchestra where you could control the percussion section beat by beat.

We caught a rescued animal presentation where we learned about snakes, rabbits, ringtails, and cockatoos. We even got to pet the rabbit and ringtail.

And the last thing before we left: the kids climbed up to this second floor marquee in Kidopolis, figured out the backwards spelling, and gave us surprise special messages. It makes it all worthwhile!

Our last stop on the way out of town was the zoo. We managed to catch training demonstrations of the elephants, seals, and sea lions. Oh, and they had Bugzillas on display throughout the zoo. Yuck!