Caveat: I'm not much of a museum person. Most museums make me bored.

When it was suggested that we go to the Bishop Museum, I wasn't too thrilled. But, when we pulled up and I saw that the building looked pretty small, I was relieved -- we wouldn't have to stay too long. I quickly learned that there was a whole campus of buildings, all of which focused on different things.

My mind was quickly changed. We were there when the dinosaurs were there. The exhibit was on a small side, but was really fun. Our kids loved the animated dinosaurs that moved and roared on occasion - at first they were scared but quickly thought it was really funny. Because there weren't too many dinosaurs, we were able to spend a little more time at each exhibit and actually learn something.

We also liked the volcano exhibit and the animal dress-up area just upstairs from the volcano. Even though it wasn't an exhibit, the large grassy area between the buildings was also a fun place to run around.

It's great to find a museum that has interesting exhibits for all ages. I was surprised that after 1.5 hours when we had to leave, I felt disappointed and had to pull the kids away from what they were doing.

We love this park. It has all the elements to make it perfect for everyone - a baby playground (enclosed by a fence that has a gate that kids can't open), a well-shaded playground for bigger kids, a shaded sand area, grassy hills with sufficient shade for great picnics, and a water area where water shoots up somewhat randomly. Our 4 year old thinks the water area is awesome while our 1.5 year old loves the twisty slide in the bigger playground.

The best thing about the layout of the park is that if you are watching multiple kids who are interested in playing in different areas, you can situate yourself on top of a hill and see many parts of the park at once.

And, it has a couple bathrooms -- that have always been clean every time we've needed to use it.

(While we've gone to this park a lot, we most recently went on a 90 degree day - can't you tell?)

I had heard that this was a great place for kids who love trains, so we were really excited to visit with our 1.5 yr old and 4 yr old. The train ride was okay and the llama, goats and other animals at the stop were a nice surprise. But, there are definitely more fun and interesting train rides in the Bay Area.

The train ride took us by a bunch of "animals", but they were just statues. And, while the grounds cover 10 acres, that's actually not that large when you are covering it by train. There's a lot of winding back and forth, so you don't see that many different things.

There are other carnival rides which our kids didn't want to ride. But, other kids who were riding the rides had to be very patient. The ride operators seem to operate multiple rides, so at least half of the rides are closed at any one time.

When my oldest son was 2, he hated the texture of sand, even when he was wearing shoes. So, this was his favorite playground because all of the play structures are on that crushed rubber material (I'm sure it has a more technical name...). He loves, and continues to love the little train structure where he could pretend to be a conductor and sit in the passenger cars. He also liked the smaller kids play structure. They also have a larger one, but he has yet to be brave enough to try that out.

There's still a sand pit for sand lovers. And, since I love playgrounds with nearby restrooms, this one gets an extra half star for having a restroom close by.

It would have gotten 5 stars if it had more shade and if it weren't so crowded all the time.

On a recent trip to Seattle in February, we visited the Locks to give our kids a chance to stretch their legs. While there were no salmon, we still had plenty of fun walking along the water, looking at the waterfalls created by the locks and checking out the boats. The most unexpected part was that there was a man walking around with extra loaves of bread. When we passed him, he offered us an entire loaf to feed ducks. Not sure if this is just a one-off encounter, but the ducks (and us) were certainly appreciative.