Thursday, December 3, 2009

King Tut



We took the kids to the King Tut exhibit at the De Young Museum and had a great time. I had been wanted to see this traveling show for awhile so I was glad we were finally able to fit it into one of our San Francisco weekend trips. I prepared the kids by reading them the book:
It gave them some base knowledge and the opportunity to start asking about a million questions before we even arrived. I knew taking two little girls wouldn't give us the opportunity to stay and read or observe everything as thoroughly as we would have alone but we set our expectations low and told ourselves that we would roll with the kids and take their cues as to how long they could handle it. Luckily the museum had it set up in such a way that you entered as a group at a certain time and then went through a series of about 10 rooms together. It moved along quite quickly (but still with enough time to check it all out) the timing seemed to work very well. My youngest (4 years old) fell asleep about half way through which was fine because she was free and then we didn't have to worry about her complaining to leave. My oldest (6 years old) was very captivated by the whole thing and wanted to see every artifact and have us explain it all over and over again. The last room was by far the coolest. It had imagery showing the mummy, explaining the process by which it was excavated and then many actual artifacts that were found inside the coffin - facinating!!!








If you are in need of a little nourishment before or after the exhibit the museum does have a nice little cafe with indoor and outdoor seating. We found it to be a nice place to relax and eat for awhile before the girls were asked to be quiet and behave on the tour. The outside eating area had a nice grassy area where the kids can run around and get their energy out which is always a bonus! Just be sure to keep them off of the outdoor sculptures otherwise you will be told to get the children off of the art work over a loud speaker like we were - so typical for us!








Besides the actual exhibit - which was obviously the biggest highlight for us - there were a few other favorite moments for my family.


1. The Observation Tower
For the girls it was the observation tower located at the top of the museum. We were lucky enough to be there on a picture perfect day so the view from the tower was spectacular. We all really enjoyed being up there.

Thirty-Six Patch variation (crib quilt)


2. The Amish Quilt Exhibit
I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived to see that the museum was having an amish quilt exhibit. My family was kind enough to humor me and check out the quilts - they might not admit it but I think they kind of liked it too :)

3. Three Day Museum Pass
We were also surprised to find out that when purchasing our King Tut tickets it also gave us general admission tickets to the rest of the museum for 3 DAYS!!! This was awesome, it really made us feel more relaxed especially with the attention span of our little ones - they always seem to do much better when they can take things in on small doses.

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