Thinking About Summer: Visiting Museums

A few weeks ago, when we were still seemingly in the midst of Winter, I suddenly had the urge to plan out our summer. So that’s what I did. Yep–at the beginning of March, I planned out the months of June, July, and August. Complete with camp adventures.

We knew a while ago that we were doing camp. Princess Anna is going to Mom & Me Camp for the first time (and she is already packed!), and Rapunzel is going to “Big Girl Camp” for the first time! We are all so excited. But of course these camps are short term, and I have a lot of summer to fill.

I’ll be talking in the next few posts about how I scheduled our summer and will be ending with our summer calendar. But one of the first things I decided to do was to visit museums. Our family hasn’t been in a financial position…ever…really to visit any museums at a cost. And just about all of the museums in our area come with a cost. This year, we aren’t incredibly well off per se, but we are at least finally able to pay our bills, and I knew that our kids could benefit immensely from visiting museums.

Because museums are quite costly, and because there are few I wanted to visit, Prince Charming and I decided to use any extra money I make on the side to put toward a family membership with a children’s museum that has affiliations across the country. We went with the Family Plus membership, which allows us admission for 6 people (so we can ALL go!), up to three adult cardholders (so a grandparent can take them too!), guest discounts, free access to members-only events, express entry on busy days, and discounts at the museum store, on birthday party packages, on guest memberships, and guest admissions PLUS 50% off general admission to 200+ member museums. Even if we only visit each museum once and don’t use any other benefit, we are still saving over $26. And anyway, it’s not like we can get lost an waste time, because there is digital signage for museums all over the world these days, making the whole trip much easier.

Now Princess Anna has this problem called I-have-to-touch-anything-and-everything-especially-if-Mom-doesn’t-want-me-to. (Reason #2 why we never really went to museums before.) That’s why our membership includes admission to museums like Port Discovery, Hands on House, and Please Touch Museum. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t say for sure if we will do this every year, but at least for this year I am pleased to provide my kids with some active learning at a discount. And what’s better than having your kids learn while having fun?