For this year's spring break, we decided to stay home and do things around town so I planned things to do all week (at least one outing most days).
It started with meeting friends at Big Bill's Pizza and Monster Mini Golf. We started out with lunch as the golf place didn't open until noon. It was really yummy pizza. Then we all walked over to go golfing. The boys love Monster Mini Golf and there always seems to be deals on Groupon for half off so it's a win-win. Patrick actually did really well this time and I think golfed the entire time (even when we went past the scary tree and frankenstein's monster).
It was a fun way to start off the week.
On Tuesday, we woke-up early (6:30am) and headed downtown for our tour of the Denver Mint. The tour is free but you can only go with reservations. I have been trying for years to get a tour when the boys' are off school. I finally got one this spring break. I made it over a month ago but the only time available was for 8am in the morning. And you have to be there 30 minutes before your start time to go through security. So it was an early morning for us. Luckily, Daddy took the day off and joined us on the tour. You are not allowed to take pictures in the mint so you will just have to take my word for it how neat it was. We got to see them making pennies and dimes and we saw real gold bars. It was pretty cool. The boys loved it.
In the Mint, they had advertisements for the Money Museum, also located downtown, so we headed over there afterwards to continue our "money" morning. It ended up being a little room in the Federal Reserve but they had fun activities for the kids.
We got to see the history of the dollar, what $30 million dollars looks like, and we each left with a bag of shredded money.
The kids got to rub their own dollar bills, try to spot the fake $20 bill.....
...and create their own dollar with the option of their face on it. Daniel chose to put a picture of an astronaut instead.
I think they enjoyed it.
Then we headed over to Snooze for lunch. It was a 45 minute wait, at 10:30am, on a Tuesday. Luckily, they are used to long wait times so had fun things to do outside. The boys enjoyed playing corn hole. Patrick chose an easier way to get the bean bags in the holes....
..while Josh was very focused.
Daniel didn't want to play corn hole but they had bricks (I think they were intended for Jenga) so he built houses.
They also had a large connect 4 board that the boys played on.
Then, it was finally our turn to eat. Yay! The boys ordered various pancake flavors, I had a breakfast sandwich and Dad had a breakfast pot pie.
(Although this doesn't show it, Daniel did enjoy his pancakes).
I did plan a few days in the week for administrative activities like laundry, the grocery store, and a doctor's appointment for Josh.
But then on Friday, with Dad home for the day again, we headed down to the Denver Museum of Nature of Science. We got a membership for Christmas this year and I was very excited to go see the new exhibit, Mythic Creatures. There were krackens, mermaids, unicorns, dragons, large birds, and other fun beasts.
After wandering around the museum (Daniel had to see the space exhibit and the other boys wanted to see the dinosaurs), we headed home for lunch and naps. Then, we headed back downtown for a Nuggets basketball game. Joe got tickets for the entire family from his boss.
Patrick was really into it the entire time.
Daniel took a while to warm up to the game. Josh of course thought it was awesome as he likes anything involving sports.
We enjoyed sporting arena snacks including this huge bowl of nachos. Josh pounded them down (with some help from me) and we got to keep the bowl.
The Nuggets ended up winning (which is pretty good considering they were having a down season).
It was a fun end to a really fun week. I hope the boys enjoyed their Spring Break. I know I did.
