When we collected my eldest from camp back in July we decided to make a weekend of it and take in the Springfield Museums while we over in western Massachusetts and could pop in without the two hour drive.
The Springfield Museums, comprising five separate museums and art galleries, are located in beautiful grounds allowing you to wander from building to building through gardens and courtyards.
We arrived and checked in, picking up the wristbands that allowed us access into the museums and our timed tickets for the primary reason of our visit: the new Dr Suess Museum. I will come back to this in more detail in a later post because it is AWESOME (I will just give you a flavour of it here!), but we were pleasantly surprised at the variety of other exhibitions to go and see too. We took in the Springfield Science Museum until it was time to visit the world of Dr Suess.
It was a beautiful sunny day, so the gardens were definitely a bonus, and the Dr Suess Memorial Sculpture Garden is wonderful.
We split up for some of the afternoon to make the most of our time, with my eldest and I exploring the Museum of Fine Arts while my husband and the younger two had a wander around the Museum of Springfield History.
We all met up again in the Sculpture Garden and while my daughter slept on her dad (in the most uncomfortable way possible!) myself and the boys took in the Art Museum which had a fabulous temporary exhibition on looking at Samuri and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Really interesting. So interesting in fact that I didn’t take a single photo, too busy reading. We did enjoy the rest of the museum too, although a few too many breakables around for me to relax with my fidgety eight year old!
My eldest and I had discovered a brilliant (and sadly temporary), interactive art exhibition based on the works of Chagall in the Museum of Fine Art, so once the wee girl had woken up we headed back there. It was a lot of fun, and we spent ages there while the kids tried out all the activities.
One last wander through the gardens and it was time to head home.
I suspect that we will return here before long as we didn’t all get to see everything despite being there all day: next year when we pick my son up from camp again perhaps!
It’s definitely somewhere to spend a whole day wandering and soaking up the huge variety of exhibitions and events, and it was lovely for us to have a family day after my eldest having been at camp for two weeks!
Eudora Welty
Having fun with my children over summer vacation is my absolute priority. The blog comes very much second (or fifth, or fiftieth) on my list. BUT, last summer I missed keeping a photo journal of our activities. It’s such a wonderful thing to look back on, and it is the reason I started writing this blog in the first place. These ‘Snapshots’ posts are a way for me to record the moments, but not feel obliged to write War and Peace. Capture the days as they happen. No SEO, no pinnable images, no stress. Just keeping those moments from running away.
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Oh wow! I need to get out there one weekend!!
Oh, I would go there for the sole reason of visiting the Dr Seuss Museum. I just love The Cat in the Hat. :) It looks like you had a fab day out! :)