Mordecai Children's Gardens

We had a few gorgeous days at the start of this month. We enjoyed some cloud cover that made spending the days outside pleasant. So, we buckled the kids into the car and set out to the Denver Botanic Gardens. They now have a rooftop children's gardens, which we'd checked out in spring 2011 and loved. We have a membership to the Botanic Gardens and need to make it a point to go more often! Entry for us was free with our membership. Non-member adults are $12.50 a piece, kids under 3 are admitted free, and kids over 3 are $9.

We were a little disappointed in this trip. Most of the rocks in the rock stacking stations were gone. There were still some, but it was mostly barren. No kids played there. We hiked up "Marmot Mountain," which we loved last time. All of the animal bones for studying were gone. All of the blocks made from fallen trees were gone.

We wandered to the man-made creek. They added awnings over the creek to create shade for the children. It was a wonderful addition to the area.

Unfortunately, we found they removed all the buckets and rakes that kids used to play in the creek. There were no toys there anymore. Don't get me wrong; we still had a great time splashing in the water. I just don't understand why they took away the buckets and shovels when the little kids enjoyed them so much!

Here are some photos of us playing in the creek:

I love this candid photo I snapped of Andrew and Joanna:

Check out the clouds!  It was such a lovely day.

Behind Oliver is a pair of dress-up wings. It's all that was left in the stage area that used to be filled with dress-up items for kids to play with: 

Oliver loved our afternoon at the Botanic Gardens. Our membership made it was worth the trip. Had we paid the non-membership entrance fees (for our family, that would have been $25), then I'd have to say our trip wouldn't have been worth the cost. I mean, playing in the creek was fun, but kids can play in a nice creek for free at Belleview Park or at Civic Green Park! Hopefully, the Denver Botanic Gardens will bring back all the toys, activities, and learning tools that they offered to kids when they first opened the Mordecai Children's Gardens. As of now, it's just an expensive place to take kids to splash around.