March 1, 2013

Desert Sky, Apache Junction, AZ

(Children’s Museum of Phoenix)

What an absolutely beautiful day it was!  I sat outside most of the day

 








while Monte continuing working on the solar installation project.

  Today he cut the plywood for the area where the batteries are going to be stored. 

 

He took a break for lunch

 

and then got one of the guys working in our park to move the batteries from the trunk of my car to the front storage area of our rig. 

 The batteries weigh over 90 pounds each and not wanting to reinjure the arm that he had surgery on a year ago, he felt it was well worth paying someone else to do the heavy lifting.

 

Once they were placed where he wanted them he secured them by drilling brackets on all four sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drove into the city to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix to meet up with my daughter Renee, granddaughters and a friend of the twins that was going to be sleeping over their house.

  Target sponsors a free night the first Friday of the month so admission was free.   According to the museum’s website,” Acting on the principle that learning is a joy, the Children’s Museum of Phoenix’s mission is to engage the minds, muscles and imaginations of children and the grown-ups who care about them. With hands-on, interactive exhibits designed for children ages birth to 10, the Museum focuses on learning through play, with emphasis on early childhood education and school-readiness.

 

 

 



The Target free Friday must be well publicized because it was a mob scene of strollers, children running and screaming and parents yelling for lost children.

 Our first stop was at the Art Studio where the children made a St. Patrick craft. 

Daphne

Kennedy

 

 



We then moved on to The Market where all the children fought over the limited number of carts to fill with cans, boxes and vegetables.

  Then they moved over to the “check-out” counter to scan their purchases. 

 Was coming here my idea?

The next room held an assortment of pots, pans and cooking utensils with work stations and a pizza oven complete with paddles to remove the “hot” pizza from the oven.   

Utensil art.

Germs, Germs, Germs

Daphne creating sand art.

And doing another one of her favorite things-climbing.

The girls went through Noodle Forest over and over again. The forest has oodles of noodles suspended from above.   

 

 

 

 

 

 Drums were banged on before moving onto The Climber. 

 First Grandpa Monte went through the tunnels and got stuck (although he claims he was only kidding around.) 

Then I took a turn (don’t know what I was thinking as I just recovered from a back injury).  I kind of got stuck myself at the top because there is only one way up and down and so many kids were coming up that I had to wait at least 10 minutes for an opportunity to go down. 

 

Even Mommy took a turn.

 

Just prior to exiting the museum, Renee took the girls through the gift shop and bought necklaces for Kennedy and her friend. 

 

 

 

 

Daphne chose binoculars. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"No, it can't only be 7:30!"

 

In the parking lot we hugged and kissed goodbye.  Renee was taking the girls for ice cream.

We passed because we hadn’t eaten dinner yet and were in the mood for pizza. 

 

 We ended up picking up a mushroom pizza at Gino’s for $5.00.  It was delicious.