Where Did We Go Wednesday? Crayola Experience

I had the opportunity to go along with my son on his field trip to the Crayola Experience at the Mall of America last week. Crayola Experience only gives so many chaperone passes and I was not picked to be one of those but they allowed additional chaperones to come along for $9 a piece which is a bargain when you consider that the cost of admission is $19.99 a person. My sons admission was covered by the school so I didn't have to pay for that so for two of us to go for that price to check it out is a good deal. I really wanted to see what it was like because my kids have been asking to go but considering that it would cost $60 for me to take both of them I wanted to be sure it was worth the cost because $60 sure can buy a lot of crayons. Just to note you can buy a season pass which is unlimited admission for $29.99 per person or $99.99 per family. The next time we go, and there will be a next time we will be buying a season pass. Unlike other season passes we get this is a for-profit company so our season pass is not tax-deductible.

We were there for 3 hours on the field trip and managed to get around to all but one area. Some of the areas we had to rush through because we wanted to try to get as many as possible. I am not sure I could even pick out what my favorite area was. There is a lot to do here. You end up leaving with many projects but there are still even more areas that are just physical play or they are a digital type of area.

In the picture above you can see the crayon ring I made. That is in one of the areas and you get to choose between three different wax Creations, one of which is a ring. In that same picture you can see my son is watching his crayon drip and melt into his creation.

This next picture is a good example of some of the large motor skill play areas as well as digital areas. Same with the bottom picture which is two pictures of my son and I in a digital area where it appears like crayon wax is dripping over us. 

There is a couple of shows to watch while you are there. They are live shows. One of them shows how a crayon is made from start to finish and at the end they give them a red crayon which is what they are demonstrating being made. The other show was demonstrating the scientific properties of silly putty. Both shows are performed at various times throughout the day. So you are sure to be able to find one of them that fits into your schedule.

Besides getting a red crayon from the one show there is also another area where you get to name your own crayon can you pick out what color you want and put whatever name on it you want. So between the crayon mold, the show and the name your own crayon area you will leave with three crayons.

There is also a puzzle making station and a painting station and a hot wax Spin Art station and a hot wax painting station. You will leave with projects from all of those if you do them. There is also a station for Model Magic clay that you can do. This station as well as the crayon naming station take one token each period we were given a token for each one for each person when we arrived. They do have a station where you can buy more tokens that is by the Model Magic dispenser. The Model Magic dispenser gives you one color of Model Magic clay / token. Tokens were two for a dollar.

There is also two big play areas with slides and tunnels and monkey bars that kids can play in one is geared towards younger kids and one is towards older kids. There is also area where there is a huge Lite-Brite to play with. The number of digital areas is probably about a half-dozen of them. I didn't do those as much because there is only so many stations and we had so many kids that were wanting to play that the adults just watched in these areas

There is a Café there and they do serve a variety of food but we had brought bunches. I'm not sure if they allow you to normally carry in food or if they only allow this for school groups.

I am sure I am missing telling you about some area or private we got to create but as you can see there is quite a bit to do to fill your time.

Junior Naturalist Program at MN State Parks

This summer, help your kids become Junior Park Naturalist through the free program at the MN State Parks. The program runs all year long, but why not start this summer and help them earn all 3 badges and fill out their 3 free activity booklets. It will certainly be something they won't forget.

Happy Memorial Day!

Paper Plate Patriotic "Banner"

Aren't these just so cute! There are four of us in our family and we each made our own design to hang up at the cabin. All you need is one paper plate for every 2 you want to make. Cute them in half and have fun painting. We made these while at the cabin and while we are there we like to get crafty but don't have quite the arsenal of craft supplies there like we do at home, so fun and simple things with minimal supplies is definitely something we can do while we are there. Try these out!

Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon

I can't believe I didn't tell you about this Indoor Triathlon after I completed it in January. Yes, it's been a while but it was the second one I had ever done and I didn't want to forget about it. I was looking at posts I had in draft mode and realized I dropped the ball on publishing this one. Sometimes, I wish Blogger would send me notifications about "On This Day" like FB does so I be reminded of what I wrote about each day over the last 8 years. Yes, it had been about 8 years now, which is crazy. What is crazier is that I started blogging on a personal blog ever longer ago. I don't post on there that much, maybe a few times a year.

Anyways, I diverge......I finished exactly where I expected to and how I finished last time -- right in the middle. I am not terribly fast, but I am not terribly slow. I'm just an average person, in so many ways. LOL! I had 3 friends who did it with me. One of them was the friends I did my 1st Indoor Triathlon with and for the other 2 this was their first.

So, what I can remember about my race is that we were at the Lakeville location and I would totally not choose this location again because the pool was not conducive to a race. Seriously, it was 3 feet deep, which means it was super wavy as every one is swimming their laps and was a slow pool. Ugh. I am already a slow swimmer, I didn't need this. Plus they stuck 2 in a lane at a time and I was stuck on the wall side, which is not as easy to side stroke so I tried to do freestyle as much as I could.

I definitely made up time and points on the bike. I had been going to spin classes regularly, so I was very well prepared for this. My only complaint is they started the clock and then came around and started our distances, so unless you were one of the first couple of people they started you didn't get credit for all of your distance, so that sucked because I lost a couple of minutes of distance and I was cruising!

The run was so much better than last time. I felt better prepared with understanding how my body would feel during the transition and ran at the pace I wanted. Only bummer was that I accidently hit the reset button (who puts an automatic reset button right next to the speed buttons? Stupid.) and my time/distance was wiped. Luckily I had looked at it right before it happened because I was making myself up my speed every certain distance, but then it took 30 seconds to get everything cleared and started and then another 10-15 seconds to get back up to speed on a treadmill. Ugh. When you are doing 60 minute race and you lose 3 minutes of distance, which is 5% it does make a difference.

Kids Skate FREE All Summer!

Last week I told you about a program where kids can bowl for free all summer long, and today I am telling you about a program where kids can skate for FREE all summer long. However, in MN there are only 2 skating rinks that participate. They are located in Woodbury and St. Louis Park. Although in our neighboring state of Wisconsin there are 7 locations.

Check for locations near you

Save $5 on MN State Park Permits

Do you have a Minnesota Zoo Pass?

If so, you already know you get 50% off admission and many zoos across the U.S. 

But did you know that now you can get $5 off your $25 MN State Parks permit.

Read All About It!