KMOS PBS Kids' Day

So I heard about this free event at the Expo center from my friend.  And since my nephew was in town, I thought, "let's give it a whirl."
It was a really cool event for being free.  They had Clifford the Big Red Dog, Curious George, Sid the Science Kid, and other PBS characters you could get your picture taken with.  They had projects kids could do and "learning" stations.  They also had a few screenings, like for kids' eyes that you could do for free.

BUT


There were probably 3,000 people there.  You had to wait in line for EVERYTHING.  I got there right at 10am, when it started and still waited in line to enter.  By the time I left, that line was out the door and through the parking lot.  Each character, you had to wait in line for at least 10 minutes.  And the only way you could get the "free" coloring book was to get a stamp from each character, forcing you to wait in line for each character.  We chose not to do that, as my nephew was totally freaked out by all the people and the giant characters.

I'd recommend going to this event only IF they make major changes to how it's organized.  Totally not worth it with 3,000 other people.

Super Pages Circus

The circus was in town last weekend and lucky for me, my nephew was in town so I had a reason to go!
I thought it was going to be a cheap night because I had a coupon for a free child admission, but little did I know it cost $15 for an adult admission!
As far as circus's go, they had elephants, camels, horses, people swinging on ropes, etc. Decent acts. However, for the cost, I'd recommend waiting and spending your money for Barnum and Bailey.
I did not appreciate between every two acts them trying to sell some "cool" toy to kids.  I could tell other parents were also not pleased.  Quite the money suck.  You could ride an elephant for the cost of $5 a child, and $8 an adult, but they crowded about 6 people at a time on each elephant.
So overall, it gave me something to do with my nephew and had some fun acts, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they wanted to spend a ton of money!
Here's some pictures:
Chick riding an elephant.

 My nephew and Laura and Bella, clearly engrossed by something.

 What they called the "Cage of Death" and yes, that is a woman standing in it with two motorcycles driving around her.

 The lions.  They were VERY large.

 I only included this picture, because yes, the woman on the right is swinging by her hair.

State Capitol Tour

Recently we went on the state capitol tour in Jefferson City.  It's only about 45 min. from Columbia and a free tour that runs about every 20 min.  The only downside is that those tours include school groups, so if you're there when a school group is, you're included in the bunch.  We happened to go when a group of 4th graders were there.

This is a decent tour, not very long, free, and gives you a brief history of the state.

I'd recommend it for probably kids around the 4th grade or older, and maybe on a rainy day.  The 4th graders we were with had a hard time paying attention.

Here are some pictures I stole from the internet.  :-)
The Thomas Hart Benton mural.  This tells a brief history of the state from his perspective.

This is the room the state representatives use.  They let you sit in the gallery even if they are in session.  They weren't, but I've been there before when they were.  It's pretty cool.

This is a picture of the rotunda.  It's pretty gorgeous.

Galactic Fun Zone

We went to Galactic Fun Zone for my birthday last week.  I was a little worried because it doesn't look the greatest on the outside, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  It's run by two former MU football players, and you can tell they really put some thought into it.  They have cosmic bowling at all times (not just on Friday and Saturday evenings like most bowling alleys), laser tag, a large arcade with pool, shuffleboard, dance-dance revolution, and a whole host of other games, plus a bar/lounge.  It's a good event for kids or adults because you can pick and choose where/what you want to do.  Plus, they have GIANT tv's above the bowling lanes, which looked really cool.

One of the owners, Monte, was there when I got there and offered to open the lounge up for me and my friends, which was super nice, but we decided the bar at the bowling alley would suit our needs just fine.  I was really impressed he'd do that for us though.

We were fortunate enough to have an Add Sheet deal-of-the-day coupon, so we had a great deal on playing games and so forth.  Otherwise, it may have been a bit of a pricey deal for us to do everything.  It costs $7 a person for one 10-min game of laser tag, $7 for a game of bowling and $1 for 4 tokens to play in the arcade.  They also have food.  It's all bar food, but it's good, and not too expensive.  About what you'd expect to pay for bar food elsewhere.

My only real complaint was they clearly haven't put a ton of money into the arcade.  One of the dance-dance revolution machines was broken, as was shuffleboard, a skeeball machine, and a couple of other games.  Even without those things, they still had plenty to do, but it'd be something I'd like to see an improvement on over time.

My overall recommendation is to definitely check it out.  I'll be going back.  It was a great, fun time.

 My team lost our laser tag game, but we looked good doing it!

What a great pic of me and some of my friends!

Kid's Movie at the Armory

On the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month, the City of Columbia hosts a free kids' movie at the armory.  I was a bit skeptical of this event, but I rounded up some friends' kids and gave it a whirl.

Tangled was the movie of the night.

I was highly impressed with this event for kids.  It included free popcorn and lemonade for everyone.  It was held in a room with a projection television and surround sound, so for all the kids know, it's just like a theater!  The best part was that because everyone there also had kids around the same ages, no one seemed to be really bothered by the fact that the kids got restless and moved around and switched chairs and were up and down, up and down...... If you have kids, you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I would definitely recommend this event if you have kids, and look forward to taking kids I know to this event in the future.

P.S.  Tangled is a pretty cute movie.

Black and Gold Game April 2011

In the springtime, the Mizzou football team holds a Black and Gold game where the team plays each other and gives fans an opportunity to scout out what the team in the fall will look like.  Normally, I go to this event because I'm a huge Mizzou fan.  However, it was FREEZING outside and the wind was a strong, bitter, cold.  I said "no, thank you" and opted out of going.  My husband is obviously a better fan than me because he braved the cold and went anyway.  I'll tell you his review in a minute, but first....

The same weekend as the Black and Gold game, the Tiger Team Store at Faurot Field has a tent sale.  We got there at 8:30am and it was one of the most amazing sales I've ever been to.  They had Mizzou t-shirts from 2008 and 2009 for $0.99!!!  They also had baseball cleats for $10, game day worn jerseys from all sports, and all kinds of other things for sale.  As my husband said, "you can't even buy a rag for $0.99!  Much less, a t-shirt!"  So needless to say, we bought about 20 t-shirts, a sweatshirt, sweatpants, gym shorts, a polo shirt, etc.  It was AWESOME because it was also Mizzou stuff, which we always like to wear if we can!

Anyway, so on to my husband's review of the Black and Gold Game:
This was a good event for kids and families because it only cost $3 or 3 canned goods for the food bank.  There was no assigned seating and lots of open seats, so kids could run around and it was no big deal.  They were also supposed to have bouncy houses, but I didn't see any.  Maybe they didn't put them up because the wind was really strong.  It was just a good event for kids to see a college football "game" for cheap and without having to worry about them sitting still.

We have zero pictures of this event.  We have got to get better about taking pictures!

Artrageous Fridays April 2011

Once a quarter, downtown Columbia has Artrageous Fridays.  It's an event where many places downtown have sales and display artwork by various artists.  This past Friday, it was cold, like when they do the January Artrageous Fridays, so it wasn't the most pleasant weather I could picture.

We picked up a booklet of the venues that participate in Artrageous Fridays at Poppy.  It was a very nice booklet, told a little bit about each place and what they had available.  The biggest problem I saw was that it only listed the address of each venue.  I couldn't find a map for the life of me.  So I wasn't sure if things were close together, worth the walk, or in some cases, even where it was located in the first place!  I see this as a horrible oversight for the event.  Especially when it's cold, I want to know how long it's going to take me to get to the next place where I can get warm again.  It probably didn't help that we went to Red Mango, a frozen yogurt and smoothie place, but the place was new and I just had to try it.  (I personally like YogoLuv better, but the difference between the two is pretty slight.)

My recommendation is that this is an ok event if you are looking for an excuse to go downtown or if you've had your eye on something at a store downtown and may want to catch a sale.  Otherwise, I'm not sure it's any different than going downtown any other night of the week.  I'm also not sure there are that many things for kids to do at this event unless you are going out to eat, so I'm going to label this event as an adult event.

Here are some pictures from the night.  Sorry they are so dark, my camera isn't the greatest and I forgot to take pictures until it was pretty late in the evening.

Here is a picture from Bluestem where we were checking out Mike's woodworking competition.  (My husband sells things at Poppy, a similar store around the corner.)

 9th Street

 Broadway