Around Town: Star CIty Skate Center and Tanglewood Mall Mommy Time

We've found a few new places to play this January!   Elijah and Kim kept driving by the Star City Skate Center, and he would comment about how much he wanted to play in their indoor play area.  Now, we know the center has $1 admission on Tuesdays with $1 skate rentals to boot.  In this equation, $2 is 2 hours of fun, and we've now been twice.  Kim was pleasantly surprised that Elijah wanted to learn to skate--and he did it!  Of course, the play area is also very fun for toddlers through young elementary students.  There is no ball pit but there are plenty of opportunities to climb and crawl as well as, per Elijah, a "really fast" slide.  If you want to go on a day other than Tuesday, look in the local Val-Pack mailer for coupons.

On a recent day off, Elijah and Gwen took Kim to Mommy Time, the new indoor play area at Tanglewood Mall (across from Belk upstairs).  If you haven't seen it yet, Mommy Time has an indoor climbing structure with slides and a ball pit, some merry-go-round like rides, a large Duplo block area, a LCD "video" game that projects items for kids to stomp on, and similar play features.  For around $7 an hour, kids can play, attended by sitters, while parents enjoy the mall area, although the website is a bit unclear about how old kids have to be to stay solo.  You can stay and play yourself--adults are even allowed on the climbing structure.  Both kids loved it--Elijah, age 5, played a full 2 hours, and Gwen, 20 months, could handle about 90 minutes.  Elijah gave a big thumbs up to the "video" game, chasing game elements for around 45 minutes.  Gwen liked the climber best and crawled through the tunnel quite skillfully for her age.  She can give us a run for our money!  If you go, Kim recommends that you stay with any kids under 4 or so--there are a few places where the floor could benefit from some additional padding and you may want to be around for any tumbles.  Elijah would have been fine solo--but Gwen not so much.  Plan to remove your shoes and wear socks to play. You can also stay and just sit on the couches and read, use your phone, etc.

On the whole, we were impressed with both places for their ability to keep us active on cold winter days, and we'll be back!

It's Going to Be a Year for Science Museums: Back to Martinsville for Dino Day

Kim has mentioned it before, but we are thrilled with our ASTC Travel Passport!  With it, we headed back to the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville to take in Dino Day, one of their special annual events. 

Dino Day is a "fun day" all about dinosaurs that is very accessible to elementary-aged children.  This year's event featured two animatronic dinosaurs, a dinosaur origami station, Appalachian State students chatting about their experiences on fossil digs, a balloon artist, and similar items of interest to kids.  One of the niftiest parts?  The event included a true variety of interests and even included a station where a watercolor artist created pictures of dinosaurs.  If you go, know the stations crowd the museum a bit, and we noticed crowds were thinner as the event progressed.  It is our understanding the event returns each winter for a day of fun sponsored by local industry.  While visiting, we continued to enjoy the other exhibits, spending more time in the current temporary exhibit about the role of water in Virginia on this trip.  This exhibit features a sophisticated sand/water table which Elijah and Gwen enjoyed for well over 20 minutes, and they would have stayed longer if I had let them.  To read more about our overall take on the museum, click here.  For a real throwback, see our first visit here, one of the first times Kim and Elijah went out adventuring for a mommy-and-me date.   

One of Our Favorite Traditions: Williamsburg for Christmastide

We're so glad we've learned over the years that Williamsburg, Virginia, is a wonderful place for Christmastide.  Colonial Williamsburg follows a traditional "12 Days of Christmas" calendar, drawing the celebration through to Epiphany on January 6, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg's ChristmasTown lasts until December 31.  From this has evolved several great years of "after" Christmas celebration for our family, a group of notorious holiday people.  It's a simple enough trip to arrange: we hit Hotwire for a hotel, spend an afternoon and evening in ChristmasTown, and spend a day walking Colonial Williamsburg.

We were truly blessed at this year's ChristmasTown.  The weather was so warm that Gwen took her coat off without our protest and everyone else, including the employees, seemed to think major rainstorms were imminent, resulting in the park operating with about 10% of the visitors it can handle.  Keeping in mind that ChristmasTown, like Howl-o-Scream in the fall, sometimes closes due to capacity, this made for an amazingly low-crowd trip.  If you go, we'd share these tips:

* Visit the penguins close to park close when the lines and crowds are the most limited.
* One coaster is usually running, weather permitting.  If you really want to ride, ride early--if the temperature dips below a certain point, staff do not run the coaster.
* Yes, you can take your own pictures with Santa (see above).
* Holiday Hills in the Festa Italia section of the park is far and away our favorite area.  As our late Granny Helen wonderfully put it, "It looks like it is really Christmas."  There are lots of blow mold Christmas decorations, colorful lights, and retro Coca-Cola ads--what a nostalgic 1950s atmosphere. Holiday Hills is also a great place to eat dinner--Rudolph's Diner is a buffet and one of the best deals in the park.
* We hear great things about all the shows, but usually, we just do the show in the Globe Theatre as we enter the park and spend the evening enjoying the outdoor lights.  This year welcomed Scrooge No More!, a succinctly-adapted version of the Dickens classic.  Justin is a Christmas Carol expert, and he approved.
* Elijah recommends the sky cars Flight of Lights, what he formerly called "the buckets."  Gwen recommends the kiddie hot air balloon ride.

Our vote is that Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas is well-enjoyed simply walking through it, especially if you do not have time for a multi-day visit.  Justin and Kim have enjoyed their "holiday package" of admission, accommodations, and decoration walking tour before, and we'd recommend it to couples.  The decorations tour nicely explains Christmas traditions in Williamsburg historically and in today's Colonial Williamsburg, giving you tips you can use for years to come in scouting out your favorite decorations.  Don't forget to also walk the village at night--and walk in to the Williamsburg Inn if you can--and stop in Bruton Parish Episcopal Church to smell the wonderful greenery.  A few of our favorite decorations from this year appear below.  Merry Christmas!

Young Earth Scientists' Paradise: Virginia Museum of Natural History

It's true there have been no major troves of dinosaur fossils found in Virginia, but scientists know they were here and may find them.  Better yet for most of us, you can see dino fossils now without leaving the state if you head to the Virginia Museum of Natural History, a museum of impressive scale found in small Martinsville, Virginia.  The museum opens to the Hall of Ancient Life, the site's main hall and beautiful display area for several dino skeletons.  As Elijah pointed out, look up for the pteranodon, and don't miss going to the small exhibit area upstairs to walk the bridge and get a bird's eye view of the fossils below.  From the hall, you can also observe scientists at work in a few working labs.  As you can see from the photo of Justin, Gwen, and Elijah above, there's a lot to look at!

Other exhibits showcase many carefully taxidermied animals including river otters, prairie dogs, lions, deer, and even a mother opossum carrying her babies! Virginians are sure to appreciate the Virginia-focus of many of the displays, including information on the formation of coal, the lives of Native Americans in the region long ago, and Caroline County's fascinating Carmel Church fossil dig site.  To indulge your more worldwide Earth science interests, there's a space full of good descriptive information on plate tectonics and volcanoes.  There's also a travelling exhibit space adding variety for regular visitors.

If you are traveling with preschool or elementary-aged children, there is a small play area within the museum that includes climbing equipment.  Take note that it features some steep ladders and dress to "spot" your younger children accordingly.  Whether or not you have kids with you, go to the basement classroom-style space--interesting leafcutter ants and other live specimens are on display there.

If you live in southwest or central Virginia, we recommend you check out the passport-level family museum memberships currently available at a discounted rate at the Science Museum of Western Virginia.  The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) passport feature results in an impressive list of "free" museums and other cultural sites in Virginia and North Carolina in particular, including the Virginia Museum of Natural History.  We plan to be repeat visitors this year--and in warmer weather, we want to also take in nearby Fairy Stone State Park.

Relevant Twitter Handle: @VMNH