Virginia Beach - Ecursions 2 - Children's Museum of Virginia

 One of the excursions we took during our week-long vacation was to Portsmouth, VA, to visit the Children's Museum of Virginia.  This ended up being my favorite part of the whole trip...mostly for the kids.  It was about a 30-minute drive from the beach, but was awesome and completely worth it.  The fares to get in were more than reasonable ($32 for all 4 of us, although Matthew was free as he was "under 2") which included being able to visit all the exhibits int he museum and a free show at the Planetarium.  We regrettably didn't get to go to the planetarium for this trip as we were losing Matthew hard, but, if we ever go again, it will be something we definitely do.

Right out front of the museum...I'm sure they had a wonderful literary conversation

 I didn't get to take as many pictures of the different exhibits as I wanted as Colleen and I were on "keep track of our kids" mode...and they were all over the place...mostly gravitating back to the main attraction of the museum, which I'll show later on.  They featured a bunch of different things ranging from a miniature-scale model of a port completely equipped with all of the heavy machinery utilized at a port.  They even had an apparatus the kids could manipulate that would load and unload cargo to and from cargo ships and semi trucks.  Very neat.  A Bank with a safe and drive-through, a music room set up like a Stomp! stage show, a grocery store, an exhibit featuring simple anatomy and physiology, Safety Zone with fire trucks and police motorcycle, Pets and Vets, and, my personal favorite, the Dr. Force's Traveling Energy Extravaganza.  Tons of cool stuff to do, but not at all overwhelming.  I would think that most of the exhibits are catered for 5, maybe 6, and under, but it was a very cool museum.  (Above from left to right: Matthew putting out a fire, Boys checking out a city map that highlights different modes of transportation, Christopher at the bank drive though, the boys in a huge chair...Matthew not feeling it).

Christopher Driving the Bus

There was an exhibit featuring an old out-of-commission city bus.  Christopher has an insane fascination with buses, so he took full advantage.  I actually had to force him out of the bus to check out other exhibits!

From Farm to Food Mart

Sounds Around

 Bodyworks

 Curious George

 Bubble Room

They had a lot more bubble-making stuff here, but this was another one where I found it very hard to keep up with the boys.

Dr. Force's

Lancaster Train Display

This was the highlight of the trip.  Christopher and Matthew could have spent the entire day in here if we'd let them.  They loved it.  I think it was the most massive train display I've ever seen.  Along the walls around the display were hundreds of different model trains featuring hundreds of different makes and models of trains.  It really was pretty impressive.  Matthew liked it, Christopher absolutely loved it.  There were some tunnels that led to little domes where the kids could poke their heads up and see the set-up from within.   It was an amazing display...and I'm not remotely into that sort of stuff.