Disclaimer: We received a family pass to attend the Discovery Gateway 40th Bee-Day Bash so I could share our experience at the celebration with you. All the thoughts and opinions below are my own.

We had the chance last weekend to play at the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum 40th Bee-Day Bash! We look forward to this birthday celebration every year because they go all out and we always have such a great time. It’s also wonderful to see the community come together to support this amazing resource for Salt Lake City families. They have tons of sponsors who donate generously to help support the mission of the museum.

They started in 1978 as The Children’s Museum of Utah and I have fond memories of “flying” the airplane in the old building and rounding up plastic vegetables to stock the play grocery store. These days the museum is housed in a much larger building at the Gateway center and our kids love the huge variety of activities that they offer. They also have a lot of special events, sensory days, and new exhibits opening up all the time. This was our first chance to see the redesigned water play area and the new car shop sponsored by Mark Miller Subaru.

The museum serves 300,000 patrons a year but it never feels too crowded and even with all the kids coming and going we’ve always found it to be really clean and well-maintained with lots of people around if you need help. They also keep the play areas food-free so that gives me less anxiety as an allergy mom. Our kids really feel at home here – even the baby! He knows right where to go when we get there.

At the Bee-Bash, there are always a ton of things for the kids to enjoy. This year they had their Spin Wheel with huge piles of donated prizes from around the city. We bought five spins and the kids were thrilled with their winnings.

They also had a dance floor, some face painting, carnival games, and a balloon artist. We skipped the cookie decorating because of allergies but there are so many things to see and explore that none of the kids noticed.

We also took advantage of the mad scientist experiments that were demonstrated every fifteen minutes. I think that might have been the kids’ favorite part of the night because they loved having all of the science explained to them in a hands-on way. It made me want to come back and take advantage of the science workshops the museum offers!

We got a family photo at the Mark Miller Subaru photo booth and then Kyle and the kids squished into the Discovery Gateway photo booth to see if they could all get into the frame. So close!

Dinner was served at the party and the kids were excited to see that they had their own food table and little party tables decorated with confetti and party blowers. We, the parents, enjoyed grown up food and had the opportunity to use our drink tickets to grab a drink. We skipped the bar because we had the kids and we’re a little outnumbered with three littles but we were very tempted!

The grown ups also took advantage of the silent auction and the opportunity drawings. This year the big draw was a drawing for a $3,000 Disneyland vacation so of course we entered! We didn’t win anything this year but it was a lot of fun to see how excited the winners were. One of these days we have to win one of those silent auction baskets because they’re a great value!

With school holidays coming up (and holiday-holidays!), be sure to check the Discovery Gateway website for special events. Also, if you have a DG membership, you get reciprocal discounts at museums all over the country through the Association of Children’s Museums network. We used this benefit on our trips to Ohio and California this year and it saved us a TON of money – easily more than the membership cost in the first place. Food for thought as we get closer to Christmas because memberships make great gifts!

Thanks for having us, Discovery Gateway! We love you!