Discovering the Cube

I’m doing a little something different today. Although there is a little food involved, food won’t be the star of the show today.  I recently won tickets from a fellow blogger of So You Think You Can Mom, to celebrate Elmo's birthday at the Discovery Science Center.  The Discovery Cube is a science center that showcases a lot of different interactive exhibits to help kids, teens and even adults understand the world of science.  From January 29-May 1^st they have Sesame Street's: The Body Exhibit.

Living in Southern California and driving on the 5 freeway all the time, I never knew what that building was. This was my family’s first visit there. It’s two stories of wonder. On the first floor we saw an indoor geyser, a rock climbing wall, the quake zone (you sit in a booth and it simulates how it feels to experience an earthquake), and the cloud ring. This is where The Body Exhibit is as well.  Towards the back of the first floor is the entrance to step outside to their Dino Quest.

The second floor has a kid station, just in case your young ones are not old enough to experience the other exhibits. This is a station designed for kids 5 years and younger. The cutest part about this section is there’s a green screen area. Your child (and you’ll want to try it too. I did!) can go into that section and look at themselves on tv swimming with different sea creatures.

We also experienced the Air & Space exhibit where the kids got to fly an airplane, experience a wind tunnel, and feel hurricane strength winds. The is also a "Reaction Time" machine which was my personal favorite.  You place your hands down on the designated area, once you feel the buzzing you have to hit the button. This tests your reaction time. This was my favorite because Ed couldn’t beat my time. There was also a hockey area where you could experience how it is to be a goalie. Pucks are shot through a wall and your job is to not let the puck into the goal. Masks and gloves are provided, of course.

Because we were celebrating Elmo’s birthday, Elmo was there of course. He came out twice to speak to the kids and interact with them. However, this wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t talk about food, right? Since this was a birthday party celebration there was food and cake. Finger foods such as turkey sliders on wheat buns, veggies with dip, and quesadillas with lowfat cheese and wheat tortillas were served.

Mini cupcakes were also provided by Sensitive Sweets located in Costa Mesa, CA.  There were chocolate cupcakes with either chocolate or vanilla frosting and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate or vanilla frosting. Sounds pretty typical, right? The flavors may have been typical, the cupcakes itself were anything but that. These were gluten, dairy and egg free cupcakes. I’ve never eaten anything that was gluten free, let alone dairy and egg free, especially in a baked good. I was a little skeptical and had an idea that these were not going to taste good, at all. Luckily they were served in a super mini size, just in case they were not to my liking.

I picked up a chocolate/chocolate one.  I first licked the frosting and surprisingly it had a good sweetness to it.  I took a tiny bite of the cupcake with the frosting and it was actually pretty good. Nothing that I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t as sweet as normal cupcakes but it was just as moist and satisfying as one made with the missing ingredients.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were. So surprised that I probably ate about 5 of them. That’s all I’ll admit to anyway. I don’t know that I would switch to eating/baking vegan cupcakes but I am definitely not going to shy away from one ever again.

Our experience at Discovery Cube was wonderful. There are so many things to do and see, and there was a lot of good food.  My kids had so much fun.  Our thanks go out to So You Think You Can Mom and the Discovery Cube.  This is definitely a place I will take my kids back to. Take your kids, your grandkids, yourself or anyone who wants to learn something new and have a good time while doing it. Visit their website at http://www.discoverycube.org/ for their latest exhibits and pricing.  It's so much fun and totally worth it.