Children's Museum of New Hampshire

We are now proud members of the Children's Museum of New Hampshire.  This little gem is in Dover, about 15 minutes from our new house.  We haven't been to a children's museum in a long, long time (the one in Boston was just too inconvenient, and we had a traumatic parking experience that really soured us on the place).  I wasn't sure if Colwyn and Lachlann would enjoy it, being on the slightly older side, but everyone had a fantastic time.

Here's Colwyn sailing a boat in the Cochecosystem exhibit.  The Cocheco is the river that flows smack next to the museum, and their exhibit on the natural ecosystem and industry surrounding the river was really fun.

One of Niall's favorite exhibits was the Dino Detective one.  Anything with goggles and tools is a hit with him. Here he is getting ready to dig up some dinosaur bones.

And here is Fiona comparing herself to a Triceratops femur.  The T. Rex's femur is behind her.  She actually really liked the exhibit, too, and checked out the educational stuff I'd expected her to skip.

One of the biggest hits, by far, was the Adventures in Travel exhibit.  This consisted of a huge green screen, two big TVs, and lots and lots of dress-ups and props.  It was super cool, and I anticipate Doug having fun with this exhibit when he gets a chance to tag along.

I was really impressed with Mindball.  Colwyn and Lachlann thought it was fun, but not quite as cool as I thought it was.  Basically, you put on a headband with electrodes on it, and the game reads your brain waves.  The object is to move a ball (in that tube on the table) into the other person's goal.  The ball moves towards the player who is more agitated - so to win, all you have to do is relax more than your opponent.

The boys also spent a fair amount of time in the giant yellow submarine.  I didn't get a chance to check out what all of the stations in there did (it was pretty crowded, despite how the picture below looks).  They did have a sonar station which 'ping'ed' out of a little window - pretty cool.

We didn't get a chance to check out everything there, even though we were there for over two hours.  I anticipate spending a fair amount of time at the museum, especially during the winter months (and probably hot summer days, too).