Monday, December 28, 2009

Night at Your Museum

We became members of the Public Museum of Grand Rapids over the summer. We received there monthly newsletter and in was an ad for their annual fund raiser call "Night at Your Museum". This is a take-off on the movie "Night at the Museum". We couldn't let any of the characters escape! As members of the museum, it cost us $20/person (Samantha was free). Upon entering we were given flashlights and security guard badges. We had dinner, which was lasagna, pizza, bread sticks, and salad. As we were eating all the characters from the museum exhibits came to life. There were 50-60 different characters there wandering around. As we went through the museum looking at the exhibits, we would occasionally run into a character. Some of the kids had fun making some of the characters go back to their exhibit. The Pharohs were the funniest!! The kids kept dragging them back to the Egypt room and they would immediately leave again. :)
The first person we encountered was Leonardo DaVinci.A couple of times during the 3 hour event, they would block off part of floor for some knights to battle. There were 2 knights from different eras, each fighting for their own respective woman. :) The knights wore and fought in the traditional 100 pounds of leather and armour.

Marc went over to see the knight afterwards. He got to feel how heavy his armour really is!!
We found Cleopatra. When we asked her if we could take her picture, she said "what's a picture?". daddy Marc asked if we could take a drawing of her, and she said yes. She then asked us if our camera was one of those fire boxes.

We found Mona Lisa as well. She carried her picture frame around with her all night. Whenever someone asked to take her picture she would look off to the left just like the painting.
In the animal habitats section, the kids (and some Mommys ;) ) got to do a scavenger hunt about some of the displays. It really got us looking at the displays.
As we were leaving the habitats, we ran into Betsy Ross.

We walked over to sit on a bench by the window that overlooked the river and some of the buildings. Betsy Ross came over and asked what all those really tall building were????? Marc said, it's a Marriott...and that confused her even more because she didn't know what a hotel was. Marc told her it was like a really big Inn....and then she understood. ;)The museum had the carousel running for free that night as well. We saved that for last. Both kids had fun. :)



We stayed at the JW Marriott that night. It is right across the bridge from the museum and we had a certificate for a free nights stay. Both kids were asleep within 10 minutes of laying down in bed.

We had a great time!!!! We will definitely be going back again next year!!