Friday Family Fun Day Pt. 2: Panning For Gold & Swimming With Fishies in Phoenix

Whee! I'm still a bit exhausted from yesterday's adventures, but I thought I'd share the joy we all had for our latest Family Fun Friday. We took a day trip to Phoenix and visited some attractions we'd never seen before...as well as have lunch at a restaurant that we had eaten at before. We had a great time; this may have been our most exciting Family Fun Friday of the summer!

Friday #3: We visit a museum, a mall, and an aquarium (mostly in that order)

 Our first stop of the day was the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa. Turns out, it's only a few blocks away from the Mesa Arizona LDS Temple. Some LDS friends of ours had told us about the museum before; it's a place they would often take their family after a temple visit, to better take advantage of their time in Phoenix (and to spread out the long drive back home). So we decided to see if the museum was worth visiting multiple times!

Mostly, the museum reminded me of Denver's Museum of Nature and Science. Sure, there are dinosaur bones and a hallway recounting the origin of the universe, but there are also lots of cultural history and state history exhibits on display as well. But...an important distinction is that the museum in Mesa is only about 50-75% the size of the one in Denver. This is actually an advantage (at least, at this point in my life); it means the kids get less tired out visiting it, and it's perfect for the attention span of the younger kids!

Not that there weren't lots of dinosaurs at this museum...far from it. In fact, a huge portion of the museum was taken up with this life-sized diorama of a dinosaur-infested canyon, complete with periodic flash floods! It was pretty neat to look at from a variety of levels...

There was also a mock-up of an ancient Hohokam Native American village, complete with baskets & other tools the inhabitants might have used:

There were other exhibits featuring ancient cultural artifacts, as well.

However, my girls' favorite activities lay beyond. Outside, in the rear of the building, there was a cute little courtyard with an artificial "stream" where visitors could pan for "gold" (at least, little golden flecks!) The heat was (briefly) forgotten, as the girls got to work!

They got a little wet, which was welcome in the 107-degree heat (whew!). In the end, we only managed to gather a few little flecks...even if this was real gold, I doubt it would fetch much of a price...

Afterwards, the girls found their absolute favorite spot of the museum: an old jail cell block used in the Mesa City Jail until 1975. It was all-metal, dirty, dark, covered in graffiti, and generally pretty creepy...but the girls couldn't get enough of it! Close to half our time in the museum was the girls playing around in these cells, swinging the huge creaking doors open and shut...

I guess my girls are morbid!

"No-body knooooows....the troubles I've seeeeen..."

There was also a small gallery which featured a celebration of Arizona's "Hollywood tradition." Dozens of major motion pictures have been filmed entirely (or in part) within Arizona...mostly Westerns, but also several science-fiction films (including the Tattooine scenes in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi). There was also a small green-screen booth for the kids to stand in...

...from which they could "become the stars" of the old movies showing on the other side!

And there were several other exhibits in the museum besides these, too! It was a really fun place, and a great way to kill a few hours on a hot day (which would be pretty much every day in Phoenix in June). But at last, it was time to go get lunch:

 Yes, we returned to the Rainforest Cafe (it was a convenient option: the aquarium is located in the same large mall as the restaurant). Since we'd visited this place before, I knew pretty much what to expect--a large bill and fair-to-middling food.

Well, my sandwich was decent, and all the girls got pasta. What did Aurora actually end up eating? One bite of her $6 mac and cheese, then half of my fries and half of my sandwich. Grumble grumble *toddlers* grumble grumble. The good news: our waiter, who noticed I was taking care of three wiggly kids on my own, took pity on me and gave me a free drink. So at least my bill wasn't as big as it could have been. Thanks, guy!

 And at least my girls got to sit next to the elephants this time...they loved them.

As usual, they also enjoyed looking at the many aquariums scattered throughout the restaurant. But after this, it was time to visit the real Aquarium-with-a-capital-"A"...the SeaLife Aquarium, located at the other end of the Arizona Mills mall:

The girls were so excited, they were "air-swimming" in anticipation!

Look! A Finding Nemo family reunion!

Long story short, followed by a bunch of pictures: this wasn't the biggest or best aquarium I've ever seen. It was also overpriced (if anyone ever wants to try this, I strongly recommend getting discounted tickets somehow--it isn't worth the full price). However, the aquarium was clean, orderly, and had lots of beautiful displays. It was large enough that we could take our time without feeling crowded or rushed. It took up about 2 hours of our time (with older kids, you could probably do the whole thing in about an hour). And, there was a large playground for little kids at the end of the exhibits, as a "cool-down" type of area. Overall, my girls and I had a very nice time, and I hope I can take them again sometime...not just to this aquarium, but to others in other cities as well.

The girls were fascinated by these starfish...they were pretty bumpy to the touch

There were fun "peepholes" like this in several of the aquariums; the fish will swim inches from your face. Neat!

The girls thought the rays were all pretty amazing; they loved their long tails!

I don't know what kind of fish this is, but Lorelai found it lying at the bottom of one of the aquariums and took this picture. She was very proud of finding it, so I thought I should include it!

This was a large, horrifying octopus, that blubbered & shuddered back and forth in its cage the whole time we looked at it. It is nightmare fuel for me; I don't know why, but I find octopi horrifying animals.

We saw several sharks throughout the exhibit, but I was never able to get a really good picture of any of them. They just swam too fast, I guess! Oh well, it was still quite fun to spot them.

The girls are "grief-stricken" in this picture, due to their being swallowed by giant shark jaws.

Cute little seahorses!

My favorite picture of the day. Such a thrill to walk through this tunnel; it felt like a sneak peek into an underwater world!

Celeste was thrilled to see "Nemo!"

Well, I hope you enjoyed all the pictures, dear readers...they were quite fun to shoot! As you can probably tell, we've had a pretty eventful summer vacation so far. I'll try to get in one more quick blog post this weekend, then it's off to Colorado for our annual summer trip. No doubt, I'll have more to talk about then. Hopefully our Family Fun Fridays will still be in effect out of state!