Virginia Fine Arts Museum

Open 365 days a year, the Virginia Fine Arts Museum is free and has over 6,000 years of art. We spent a little over an hour at the museum, but we only visited two sections. The Museum is situated into geographical sections. We focused on the Ancient Art section in the Mediterranean, which has Pre-Dynastic Egyptian, Green, and Roman art, and some art from Western Asia. This section perfectly lines up with the Virginia third grade SOLs, for those with kids that age.

We also visited the children's exhibit, where they had hands on activities for the kids to interact with, and comfortable chairs for the adults to sit and watch. You'll want to be sure to walk around the outside of the museum, because the gardens around it are beautiful. There are stairs with fountains to climb and explore. There are also tables outside perfect for picnicking. 

There is a parking garage for the museum for $6 per day. We found free street parking right around the corner. It's a great indoor stop to cool off on a hot day or to get indoors when it's raining. I love taking small trips to art museums with kids because it teaches them museum etiquette in small doses that they can handle. Check it out the next time you're in Richmond, and checkout our index for other things to do in the city. 

Richmond Tacky Lights

Tacky Lights have been seen all over Richmond for the last 30 years, but this is the first year that we have seen them. The tradition goes back to 1985 when a Richmond DJ booked a transportation bus to tour ten houses. It was a huge hit then, and still is now. Official houses on the tour must have over 40,000 lights to be considered. 

You can drive around to check them out yourself for free, or book a tour through one of the many transportation services in Richmond. Checkout the list here:  Although many houses aren't officially on the list, driving around the city you'll see lots of houses that have decided to lean into the tacky decorations. 

Children's Museum of Richmond: Amtrak Exhibit

When I heard about Amtrak's new exhibit at the downtown Children's Museum in Richmond, I knew we had to check it out. The exhibit is small, but it has a train drawbridge which was exciting for the boys. Kids can climb aboard the train and sound the horn, drive the trains across the state on the Amtrak lines, play on the train table, and experiment with balancing load on train cars. 

Use your Children's Museum of Virginia membership to get in with a 50% discount. (I've stated before in previous posts that this can sometimes depend on who is working at the desk. I have been where they told me they wouldn't honor this. I've also been where they let us in for completely free. The rule should be 50% and they did follow that this time.) The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday 9:30-5:00. The museum has a new free parking garage just outside. Reservations are no longer required. 

A note about our visit, some changes have been made since our last post on this museum.  The splash pads have been taken out. Also the dinosaur dig part of the museum had nowhere to dig, rather was dinosaur statues to climb on. I'm not sure if either of these were because of Covid, but nothing has replaced these areas to date. 

I love that Children's  Museums offer ways to learn through play. The boys had a great time and asked us to go back and visit soon. 

Other posts on Richmond here: 

Maymont Farms and Buskey Cidery 
Children's Museum of Richmond

Children's Museum, Chesterfield
Science Museum of Virginia

The Robins Nature Center

Virginia Museum of History and Culture

Virginia Museum of History & Culture

We were lucky enough to be in Richmond during the reopening of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. The $30,000,000 renovation means a bigger building, more exhibition space, new exhibits, a new research library, and a new café and museum store.

It also means two new areas that for kids, Commonwealth Kids, about the changes in history through a child's point of view, and Commonwealth Explorers, which offers an exploration through play into Virginia's history. Here there is a store, a doctors section, mail carriers, and more. 

Stroll through the rest of the museum and checkout the changes in transportation over the years. Then stop in each region of Virginia to see the vast differences within our state. The museum is part of NARM, so you can use your Children's Museum of Virginia, or the Hermitage Museum membership to get in for free. 

Checkout some of our other Richmond posts here: 

Maymont Farms and Buskey Cidery 
Children's Museum of Richmond

Children's Museum, Chesterfield
Science Museum of Virginia

The Robins Nature Center

The Robins Nature Center

Part of Richmond's Maymont Park is the Robins Nature Center. The center focuses on "Run of the River" and highlights the ecology of the James River. It includes fish, crabs, snakes, turtles, and apparently river otters which we totally missed. Most of our time was spent playing on the giant climbing structure and hopping on logs and waving to turtles in the play area. 

At $8 for adults and $6 for kids, this center is super affordable, but much smaller than we had hoped. It makes for a perfect stop to break up a road trip for an hour. We somehow managed to get a diaper blow out from one kid, and a super random bloody nose from another in a span of five minutes while here. Stop in during a hot day in Richmond or  as a reason to get out of the car while passing through! 

Chesterfield: Children's Museum of Richmond

I always like to look for ways to break up trips, particularly on the ride home when everyone might be a little sad to come back to reality. It gives us something to look forward to while we are packing up from our family fun. On our way home from Wintergreen, we stopped at the Chesterfield location of the Children's Museum of Richmond. 

If you have a membership to the Children's Museum of Virginia, you get free admission!  (You may remember we went to the other location a few years ago and had some issues with our pass from our Children's Museum. The woman claimed there was no such program despite its being on the website... but at this location we had zero problems!) It was a perfect way to break up the trip and give the boys some time to run around and play.

I was so impressed with the constant cleaning from volunteers from their Children's Hospital. I've never seen anything like it. Each family is given a two hour time slot to enter with limited tickets sold. There is a bus and a fire truck, berry and apple picking, a grocery store, a bank, water play and more. Items in the grocery store and restaurant were prebagged for play with each individual family. Once done you bagged them back up and put them into a bin for cleaning. A few things were closed including the indoor play place, and we could tell that there were some things like weighing fish at their bait and tackle shop that had been taken out, but overall we had a blast and I'm so glad that they were open.

 

A quick tip, this museum is literally inside of a strip mall. We thought for sure that our GPS had taken us the wrong way when we pulled into a back parking lot facing a dumpster, but sure enough one turn later it was right in front of us! We checked out their gift shop too and found a few things for upcoming birthdays at a reasonable price. I also loved all of the quotes and facts about children and play on the walls throughout the building. Check it out if you are in the area! 

Childrens' Museum of Richmond

(This post has been edited because the restaurant I originally listed at the bottom... my favorite has closed. So sad!) 

We drove up to Richmond for an overnight mini vacation. I knew I wanted the Children's' Museum to be our first stop partly because I was so excited to try it out, and partly because it should have been cheap. We have a membership to the Children's Museum of Virginia locally. When you get this membership, it lists tons of museums that have reciprocity. On the Association of Children's' Museums page, it says that you get a 50% discount. 

We drive up there with an excited little man, get in, and the woman says "oh, we don't do that." What? We just drove all this way; I must have heard wrong. Apparently, on the bottom of the page the small print says to call first, because some museums choose to back out of this deal, and the four Children's Museums of Richmond don't honor it. I tried asking about teacher discounts, AAA discounts. Nope, there was nothing which the woman told me with an attitude. If I wanted a discount I was told to come back at 4:00 for the discount price... they close at five. It was thirty dollars for R, Bubbie, and I to go in. That's so expensive! It didn't even include the marry-go-round and it was ONE floor! We thought about turning around and leaving, but we decided that for 30 bucks it had to be awesome. It was.... okay.

Maybe I've just taken advantage of the fact that we have so many awesome things in Tidewater. They did have a splash pad, which was cool. They had a slide inside and a backyard area with some metal drums. They did have an area for younger kids which R enjoyed. There was a garage where kids could work on a car, an ambulance and medical area, and some water play. There was a small area for digging up dinosaurs. We spent the most time playing in the leaves in the back of the museum and in the splash pad, two things which we can do for free back home.  Also, at our local museum you can see people putting back toys that have been played with. At this one there were piles of legos and baby dolls on the floor and the backyard area totally needed some TLC. It was a nice morning once I got over the disappointment of the cost, but in comparison, I now love our local museum ten times more! Funny how going away makes you miss home.

This is what Bubbie and I did while big man was in the splash pad. Enjoying the shade. 

American Evolution Woman's Achieve Summit

Some professional developments feed your professional knowledge. Other trainings feed your soul. Tuesday's Women's Achieve Summit was a soul feeder. For 400 years women in Virginia have been achieving. Native American tribe leaders, astronauts, soldiers, entrepreneurs, educators, and political leaders. But stories of women often involve struggle, and we have had to work twice as hard as men. I believe the reason that educators are paid so little is because we are a profession dominated by women, and therefore not taken seriously. But "well behaved women seldom make history", and times are changing.

The conference started with host Queen Latifah speaking briefly before interviewing Wendy Lawrence, Senator Mark Warner, Dr. Jewell-Sherman, and Eboni Williams among others. Story Slams, brief stories of inspiring women who have made a difference in Virginia, took place throughout the day. Women in the military. Women pushing through important laws that help protect our children. Dr. Deborah Jewell-Sherman, former Superintendent of Richmond Public Schools, was the highlight of the day for me, with profound knowledge, like "as women, we don't just have to shatter a glass ceiling, we stand on a glass cliff." Her advice for being a bad ass woman: 1. get a dog 2. you can have it all, although it might not always be at the same time, and 3. put family first always. She says that "there is no stopping a woman who knows her worth and wants to change the world." 

So what can we do as moms to teach our girls, and our boys, about the power of women? What does a mom of boys like myself do? We surround my boys with books of both men and women who made a difference in history. We highlight the female superheroes. We teach boundaries for all people, so that our boys know that when someone says no, they mean it. We model how we should all treat each other, and the expectations, roles, and responsibilities that we all have. That means that boys should be expected to do traditionally female chores too. It also means that we model how we expect men to treat us. What we accept shows our boys what is and isn't okay. Our kids are watching, and as women and moms it is our responsibility that the generations that come after us exceed ours and the ones that came before us.

Maymont Farm and Busky Cidery

The Maymont property is huge and has several sections. On the property there are gardens, a mansion from 1893, a stream, a nature center, wildlife exhibits, and the Maymont Farm. Although it was 95 degrees outside, we decided to take the trek to the children's barn and check out the wildlife animals. A heads up, online it says that they the grounds, garden, and farm are open from 10-7, but they actually pull the animals in at five. We were disappointed when we arrived at 4:15 and by 4:45 the animals were being taken in. We didn't get to see some of them because of it. The grounds do stay open though.

If you're putting it into your GPS, be very specific. There are three parking lots, and it's a pretty big walk. A five dollar donation is recommended for entrance. Also, bring the stroller but be aware that there are lots of hills to climb. Kids may be interested in the large rocks along the river to climb on too. We first went to the farm. It was a cute farm where you could pay a quarter for animal feed to feed the animals.

We walked around the wildlife part and saw cows, deer, birds, and bison. There was also a butterfly garden and a wetlands exhibit. There were lots of people walking around and even some lying on blankets under a tree relaxing. There is a small play area that's perfect for toddlers just outside the farm where we sat and let R climb around. I'd love to come back one morning when it isn't so hot and see all of the animals, the nature center, and the gardens. You really could spend a whole day here; just bring good walking shoes! 

When we left there we headed to Buskey Cidery. This was a place that was introduced to me when Neil and I went to the Punk In Drublic fest this spring, but this was my first time to their cidery. They are located in an old train car loading building in the now super popular Scott's Addition part of Richmond. They have sixteen ciders on tap, and we got a flight with several, but my favorite by far was the watermelon. So good! Pro tip for mamas who want to try cideries or breweries... most have board games. If you can't find the Janga to play with the blocks, find the Guess Who. Although R is too young to play the game, he spent most of the time in my lap flipping the cards up and down. We grabbed a bite to eat at the Northshore Bar and Grill.

(From RVA!)

Science Museum of Virginia

After exploring Richmond on the first day, we stayed the night at the Homewood Suites (which was AWESOME and I would recommend!) and got up early to head to the Science Museum in the morning. The museum is located on Broad street, right next to the Children's Museum. Unlike the Children's Museum, they DO honor the reciprocity for the Children's Museum of Virginia membership, so if you have that for our local museum- it's free! This was my second time to the museum, but a first for my mom and R. It wasn't crowded which was great as they have lots of hands on things to do. Below are some highlights of the morning:

First Floor: 
Be sure to check out the speed exhibit. We were able to track our running speed and compare it to other living things. We also kicked and threw balls and found our speed for those. This area has lots of hands on things for little ones. It also has a hurricane wind simulator, which Bubbie got into, but I didn't put R in. Side note- they have a robot who plays air hockey. Very cool.

Also be sure to check the Going Places room. This is all about transportation and will appeal to any kid who likes planes, cars, and boats. Outside of the museum there are trains for kids to walk around too. The museum actually is a historical landmark from when it used to be a train station.

Second Floor: R loves aquariums and fish, so we made sure to see the animal labs. There is also a section on honey bees. Don't skip the art lab in the back corner if you've got little ones who like to create. They have the old school Spirographs that you don't see much anymore. When Neil and I went, this was the location for their "Rat Basketball" show, but I've heard it's been moved to the third floor so check if you go.They use Pavlov's old trick on rats instead of dogs. You can watch them compete in a real basketball game.

Basement: I would save this floor for last because once you're here, you may have a hard time getting them out. This floor has the Boost exhibit which is pretty cool. You start by getting a chip, and place it in each station as you go. Each station measures different aspects of your health, such as how far you can jump, your tightrope walking skills, balance, and memory. Then you take that card home and can find out all of the data. R wanted to be a tight rope walker. They even have a conveyor belt that measures reaction times that I swear is a remake from an old I Love Lucy episode.

Also on this floor is the kids play area, Lightplace. The area is for ages 5 and under, and even has a padded space for ages 18 and under. There are toys, a climbing area, books, and several light activities. Both R and I loved the giant light bright area. There are two weekly programs for little ones, the Young Naturalist, Tuesdays at 10:30 and Animal Keepers, Wednesdays at 10:30. Each includes a 20 minute educator-led story, song, and activity. There is no additional cost for the program.

Visiting Info: 
Hours: Monday-Saturday 9:30-5, Sunday 11:30-5
General Admission: Adults 13-59 $15, Youth 6-12/Seniors $13.50, Ages 3-5 $10, 2 and under free.
Dome admission: add four dollars
Activie duty military, retired military, and veterans with ID receive free admission. The museum also offers reduced rates for low-income families through a program called Museums for All Initiative.

Be sure to check out the list of things going on daily when you arrive.

Overall, we loved this museum. We spent the morning there, but could have spent longer if we didn't need to get on the road. I'd come back, and I'd really like to check out one of the programs if we are back in Richmond on one of those days sometime soon. I love Richmond. I think there is so much to do and see. In fact, every time we go I find something else that I want to do! It's the perfect short drive get away.