Ogden's Treehouse Museum

 

This morning the kids and I headed up to Ogden to the Treehouse Museum (can you guess why it's named that?  The treehouse was actually pretty neat).  I had never heard of the place until reading a random Utah travel guide, but I was glad we went to check it out.  I told Kenzie we were celebrating her last day as a 6-year-old!

 The first thing the kids spotted was a fire truck and wanted to dress up like Uncle Arnie and Grandpa!

 Parker was so proud of himself playing this game on the giant US map - he'd push a button on the wall and it would ask if he could find the race car in Indiana, for example.  Kenzie lost interest after not being able to find a moose, but Parker played several rounds.

 Kenzie had more pressing matters to attend to over in the Oval Office.  My presidential facts are very rusty, as I learned when she wanted me to help her play a matching game on the wall right after this. 

 Dr. McKenzie looking through a microscope -

 - and this is one of my new favorite pictures, of Dr. Parker checking out an x-ray.  They stayed in this little clinic area for the longest time, putting on stethoscopes and caring for baby dolls. 

 I know this post already has a billion pictures, but I had a hard time narrowing it down - Parker loved to sit in the old-fashioned school, learning from no other than...

 ...Miss McKenzie, of course.  She didn't hesitate to take the front of the classroom.

 After lunch, we came back and Parker discovered the train table area.  I really didn't think I would ever get him to leave!

 Just by looking at the expression on Parker's face, you can guess how excited he was in the music area to make some serious noise on all the instruments (mostly drums, but he loved this marimba, too).  I am fairly confident Cameron has decent hearing, because his siblings really woke him up when we got to this part!

 McKenzie using some chopsticks in the China area.

 Randomly in a corner of the Japan area this Pikachu was hiding.  Parker acted like he'd spotted a celebrity and wanted his picture taken!

Finally they were ready to leave after over 4 hours, and we stopped at a little ice cream shop a block away to cool off.  They had a ton of random flavors: licorice, pineapple-coconut, bubblegum, root beer, candy bar whirl, even something called Mother Lode.  I had to ask, "Do you have plain chocolate?" for Parker.  (They did, although it wasn't even in the giant display cases!)  Parker barely made it back to the freeway before he was completely out, and Kenzie rested quietly and wanted to watch a movie once we got home!