Have you seen the movie Night at The Museum with Ben Stiller? Well my girls have and they LOVED it. So when we hatched the plan to bring them here to New York City for a weekend, we knew exactly which museum would be our token museum visit – The American Museum of Natural History. The museum where many of history’s characters come to life in the amusing movie that was filmed there.

Adventure-A-Day: Day 8

Fortunately for us, we are staying at the NYLO hotel in Manhattan’s upper west side which means it was only a 10 minute walk to the museum this morning. We arrived moments before it opened and already had a printed copy of the self-guided ‘Night at the Museum’ tour. As soon as we walked through the main entrance, the girls knew exactly where they were. It was all familiar. What a great way to endear museums to young minds. They were in an environment they would normally find dull and boring (for my kids anyhow) and yet here they were excited and eager the start their search for more familiar characters and scenes from the movie. Using the self-guided tour printout, we started on the first floor and made our way slowly up to the fourth floor, checking off each site on our guide as we went. I’m not much of a museum goer myself so the guide was perfect for me to. It took us to almost every main exhibit hall but only required us to view portions of each if we followed it strictly. This also meant that we were able to complete the entire tour before the girls lost interest or started complaining about too much walking or needing a snack.

From the cheeky capuchin monkey ‘Dexter’ to the large maoi cast from Easter Island (Dum-Dum) and the wooly mammoth, we took in all the exhibits featuring characters from the movie and re-lived some of the girls favorite scenes.

Today’s daily adventure was creating an adventure for my girls. Today a quiet, dimly lit museum came to life and filled two little girls with wonder.

Sometimes what makes an adventure a great one isn’t about WHAT you’re experiencing but rather HOW you’re experiencing it.

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