Virginia Beach Day 4-Who had more fun?? Samuel or Us?!

Virginia Beach really is a family-oriented area!  When I googled things to do with kids, tons of suggestions came back...unfortunately most aren't suited for toddlers!  So we are going to wait awhile to go to the water park, race cars, or visit Mount Trashmore.

However, I was so excited to see that the Virginia Children's Museum was located in Portsmouth!  It was only 20 minutes from where we were staying!  So Tuesday morning, we loaded up and headed to Portsmouth!!!  We've wanted to take Samuel to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum for awhile, but got distracted by the Pittsburgh Zoo and other fun summer activities...so we were really looking forward to the museum!

The museum wasn't overly large, but it was very clean and well organized!  Everything was divided into rooms...and Samuel loved EVERY ROOM!

The bubble room was our first stop!  There were bubbles coming out of the walls, all the kids were blowing bubbles, you can make giant bubbles!  And Samuel LOVES bubbles!  So he just stood there mesmerized in all the bubbles!!! 

Here's a bubble wall that they had dividing the bubble room! 

Like a typical toddler though, out of sight was out of mind!  Once we were able to peel Samuel out of the bubble room, he totally forgot about it because he saw another one of his favorite things: buttons to push!!!  Samuel loves to push buttons to see what happens!  There was entire exhibit dedicated just to pushing buttons! 

The exhibit was actually geared at more of a Pre-K age group because it asked questions and gave hints to figure out the right answer, but the concept was so simple that if you pushed a button it made noises and lit things up.  The museum did a great job really hitting several age groups!

Here Samuel is learning about importing and exporting to Europe and Asia.

 

 With this exhibit (Samuel's favorite of the button pushing!) You pushed the buttons to make the crane lift boxes on and off a barge and a truck...depending on which button you pushed, your item was either imported by the truck or exported by the boat!

 Between the buttons and the bubbles, we needed a break!  All we could find was this great 8 foot tall chair!

There was also a really great room dedicated to fire trucks!  It was AMAZING!  They had a full-sized fire truck for the kids to climb in and pretend to drive! 

Here's our little fire fighter!

Emergency Response Motorcycle with real working lights and horn!

I'm not sure who loved the fire truck more...Eric or Samuel. 

Samuel is going through a phase where he loves to pretend to drive!   At home we sit in our 4-wheeler for hours and pretend to drive it!  No keys, no gas, we just sit!  So this fire truck was right up his alley!  Working horn, lights that flashed, outfits to wear, a CB to talk into!  The works!

 We arrived at the fire...time to use the hose!

Eventually I was able to persuade the boys (yes, both of them needed to be persuaded!) to visit the next room...the music room!

It was really neat!  They had floor to ceiling chimes, steel drums, and every other instrument you could think of to use!  Eric and Samuel gave the bells a whirl!

Floor to ceiling xylophone!

Drums made out of recycled plastic tubs!

Steel drums!

One of my faithful blog followers mentioned that I'm not in a lot of the pictures...which I'm not.  There is a good reason for that (at least on this trip when all of us were together).  Samuel is TALL and HEAVY!  So I had the choice of hauling Samuel around or carrying the 5oz camera...I said camera :0)

We learned all about how produce makes it from the farm to the store! 

Our little future farmer!

Using the cash register to check out the produce!

The science room was really nice as well! They had great experiments that were lots of fun to do!  Samuel liked this one in particular because he could spin it and run around!

Making his hair stand up!

Samuel loved this exhibit with the air and the floating ball!  He laughed and laughed and laughed!

Eric figuring out the force and lever system!

There was a really cute section with a giant playhouse...but it was the play house of the future!  It focused on why you should recycle and turn off the lights when you leave the room!  Samuel just liked the mailbox!

Cooking dinner!

Just like at home...wanting to know what is in the drawers!

We learned about the earth's orbit with this exhibit!  Well, Eric and I did...Samuel just made the Earth rotate over and over and over and over again!  He probably ran around this exhibit at least 30 times!

We tried grabbing a picture in the environmental room...but Samuel was having none of that!

The train room was fascinating!  There were loads of trains going and huge tracks...I have never seen Samuel so focused and still!!!  He loved watching them go around and around and around!

You know a fun morning is coming to an end when there are tears while you are steering a fake ship!  Poor kid!  All that fun led to one very tired and hungry little boy! 



The Virginia Children's Museum was a great way to spend the day!  Inexpensive, lots of fun (for everyone!), and a little bit different than just a day at the beach!! I really don't know who had more fun: Samuel or us?  Maybe Samuel, because it was a children's museum geared especially for him and he could do whatever he wanted without breaking anything, but then again maybe it was for me and Eric! We loved every exhibit and like every other parent there, we tried out all the exhibits...you know for the kids :0)  Having a child is a wonderful excuse to spend your Tuesday morning dressed up as a fire fighter and playing oversized instruments loudly!