Not-Back-to-School Celebration

Tuesday of this week marked the first day of public schools in our area.  As is our tradition, we take the day off and enjoy some fun with friends at one of the many museums that we have been avoiding for the last few months due to summer crowds. 

We planned to go out and enjoy lunch and visit the Chrysler Museum of Art .  The day did go exactly as planned but we managed to have fun.

Lunch turned out to be a “leisurely lunch.”  We wound up sitting at the restaurant for almost two hours.  Sadly, it was because of incredibly slow service but we enjoyed the food.  Once it arrived that is. LOL

  Clearly some of us handled  the waiting better than others. LOL

Then it was off to the museum.

You might be asking yourself, “What kind of art museum has a tank full of sea lions in front of their building?”  None that I know of.    We drove all the way out there only to find out that it was closed.  Who closes a museum on a Tuesday?  It’s so random!

So we drove all the way back to “the beach” and hit the Virginia Marine Science Center instead. 

This was a bitter pill for us adults to swallow. It’s not our favorite place.  They’ve done a lot of things over the years that I don’t like.  Most recently, the $25,000,000 redo. 

I like the idea of the redo but I didn’t like going in there only to find that half of the stuff was broken and that there is now a “traffic flow” problem because you have to follow the route dictated by the museum. 

I won’t even go into the number of trees they kill a day for their ridiculous ticket policy or the fact that the otters, my favorite, are never on display when I show up.  Sniff, my otters were missing again.  They must have the cleanest tank in the world.

But we had passes, which are officially the last dime this place will make off of me, so we went.

I do have to say, it’s so much nicer there without the crowds.  The little tunnels they jam you through are much easier to deal with when there isn’t anyone else in there.  :o)

So here are the highlights.  I’m not sure how much the children learned during this trip because I kept making them pose for pictures.  It’s what I do.  lol

Kayleigh did enjoy her own personal water-table the stingray touch pool.  Although never touched a sting ray,  she did manage to soak herself before I dragged her away.