Things to Do Near Austin: McKenna Children's Museum and Landa Park

As always, I wanted to feature a great place that we've visited recently in Central Texas, in the hopes that I can help someone else get through this last week of summer before the local school districts head back to school! Let's get started, shall we?

Now I've been to the McKenna Children's Museum once before, but it was after a trip to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Safari and we were almost completely spent by the time we got there. This time, though, we planned to spend the entire day down in New Braunfels with the museum as our main attraction, and it ended up being an even better time!

What's wonderful about the McKenna Children's Museum is that they have some truly amazing, hands-on exhibits, including an art room that is truly missing from our local children's museum, as well as some outside (though shaded, thankfully!) exhibits. They also have a room devoted to fitness and health science, including dental hygiene, food content, and a healthy vs. a smoker's lung. I believe that seeing these things and being educated about them at a young age are so critical to the formation of healthy habits, so I really like this about it! I actually much prefer the one in New Braunfels, to be honest!

Check out a few reasons why:

My favorite little ladies!

They have an entire section about space, as well as an amazing rocket with astronaut costumes for the kids. We LOVED this part!

The art room was fully stocked, including colors, paints, face painting, and these great sand discovery boxes!

Ava painting:

A doggy, courtesy one untalented mama artist!

They also have a full-size ambulance, complete with stretcher and everything. We really enjoyed that!

The supermarket is definitely one of the coolest areas, especially since everything is actual packages that have been recycled and kid-size carts and baskets!

The girls in the teepee!

The "cave" was awesome, especially since the caves we visited not too long ago were nearby :)

Something is different about this chicken coop...

 They had this really amazing outdoor climbable sculpture that they had put it since our last visit. Needless to say, the girls LOVED it! Ava was so brave to go to the top!

Normally these types of things would be way too hot to sit on in the Texas heat, but the shade protected them and it worked out perfectly!

One cool thing I had never seen before anywhere were these outdoor type of kinex/tinkertoy type blocks! They were awesome, and kept them busy for a while!

 Landa Park Picnic and Train! We would've played on the playground, but *somebody* fell asleep on the train! 

 Thanks for visiting, and I hope you get a chance to enjoy New Braunfels as much as we did on our recent visit. We'll definitely be going back to Landa Park when it cools down a bit - the park has huge playscapes, a pool and splash pad, a mini golf course and paddleboats! We can't wait!