The Sweetest Museum

It's no secret that the place to be in Los Angeles (maybe even all of California?) right now is the Museum of Ice Cream. Tickets are going like hot cakes. When I tried to see if I could get ticket for the kids and me there were literally two available days in May, with very select times. Naturally, I snagged those as fast I could.

Aside from all the photos of the museum floating around social media, I wasn't really sure what to expect. And, I was worried the kids wouldn't enjoy it as much as I was hoping.

Welp. I was blown away. And, the kids *loved* it. None of us wanted to leave.

Every. single. thing. in the place was begging for patrons to look, feel, *sniff*, taste, and photograph.

We arrived early (by a solid 30 minutes), and got right it. The gentlemen who started our tour deemed Marcus our group leader. Though shy about it initially, Marcus thought this was the grandest responsibility of all time.

From here, I'm going to let the photos do most of the explaining with bits of narration along the way.

The first stop, a ring on the tele. I had to briefly explain to Marcus that these were in fact phones, and ones we actually used once upon a time.

After the phone booth, Marcus led our group into the museum.

This room paid homage to a couple of notable spots in Los Angeles: Venice and Hollywood.
This is also where we were treated to our first batch of ice cream. The flavor was very different from anything I'd ever tried, an Earl Gray Tea flavor, with bits of biscuit chunks in the ice cream. Julia and I loved it. Marcus had a few bites and called it good.

I had to document a bow in Julia's hair. If there's not a photo it didn't happen.

To the swings and banana forest!
Though we didn't actually test it out, apparently the bananas on the wall were scratch-and-sniff, and smelled like... bananas!
Marcus loved the swing. Julia was too busy concentrating on her ice cream to care about anything else.

Neither kid knew what to think about all the bananas, but it certainly captivated them for a bit.

The mint room may very well have been my favorite. I can't quite put my finger on why...
We were encouraged to touch the different mint leaves and smell the mint our fingers after we touched the plants.

We were also handed our second creamy treat. Mint Mochi. This was easily my favorite, and the kids didn't let any of their goodies go to waste either.

I'm kicking myself for not getting a photo (fail), but there was a machine where the kids could try to win a prize. Though neither kid won a thing, they were drawn to that machine/game like moths to a flame.

A brief stop to see massive melting Popsicles...

Giant gummy bears? WITH edible gummy bears? Julia's little life was practically made complete in this room.

The ice cream cone exhibit - paired with cookie dough that reminded me very much of Oreos - didn't wow the kids, so we didn't stick around for very long.

Without a doubt, the sprinkle pool was the main event for Marcus and Julia. Neither could get over how different it felt to move through the sea of colorful sprinkles. It should also be noted that it took LOTS of convincing to keep Julia from trying to eat these by the fist full. We were allotted just a few minutes in the pool, and when our time was up neither kid moved too quickly to get out.

The very last stop in the museum was what I would consider a lounge area. There was a swing that looked like an ice cream sandwich (pictured above), a ping pong table to which Marcus and I made a feeble attempt to play, and a few very hip sitting areas. The mother of all ice cream treats was served here: an ice cream sandwich. But, not just any old ice cream sandwich. The "bun" portion of the sandwich was made with pink pancakes! Both kids insisted on trying to finish their entire sandwiches. 

After we ate our way through the museum we headed outside to burn off some of that sugary goodness with a few games that were set up in a courtyard. The hula hoops were the crowd favorite, second only to a giant connect four game where the peg holes were made to look like ice cream cones.

As with the rest of the masses, I couldn't pass up the pink exterior of the building.

On our way home I asked the kids if they would ever want to go back to a museum with ice cream. I received a resounding yes. 

Funny thing.... Tickets for August opened up... And, we will have grandparents in town for Julia's birthday, who expressed an interest in all things ice cream... And there just so happened to be a enough tickets available, on just the right day, at just the right time, for just the right amount of people in our party...

And, just like that, a birthday party theme may have been born...