Paradise Park in Lee's Summit, MO

Grandparents having fun on their visit!

Paradise Park is one of our favorite places to go and spend a few hours, so much so that we bought an annual pass. They have two sections, one is for older kids and it has a foam factory, bumper cars, putt putt golf, and a few other attractions. We frequent the Child's Edutainment Center which is on the other side of the building. It's geared towards kiddos up to nine years old and since we have a two year old and a seven year old it's perfect for our little family. When you first enter the Edutainment Center there's a room with a ball pit, a fun tunnel system with two different size slides, and a construction zone that includes humongous plastic and wooden blocks as well as hard hats and safety vests to truly get into character. The ball pit has a dual purpose cleaning system, the kids get to put the balls into the target hole and then they whiz through the machine and pop out the top of the pit usually bonking the little ones on their noggins. Don't worry, it's not hard enough to hurt and they typically like getting bonked by balls falling from the sky. Once you've reconstructed the Leaning Tower of Pisa (at least all our towers are leaning) you can move on to the water play table. They do provide waterproof vests in case your little one likes to splash and swim with the toy sea creatures floating about. Just beside the water play area is a paint your own face station which my girls love! Not wanting to leave me out they always want to paint me too so I compromise and let them design my hand, that way if it "accidentally" gets washed off in the bathroom they usually understand. There's a soft play area for babies, a reading room that has a great selection of books and a train table, and an animal room filled with barns and lots of, well, animals. Our girls typically make a bee line for the pretend play area that houses a bank with a real vault and paper money, a "home", a pizzeria, and a grocery store with a healthy selection of food and two working (most of the time) registers. No pretend play area would be complete without dress up clothes so they even provide fun outfits for the kiddos to adorn themselves with while trying their hand at baking a pizza. Guess what? There's more! Outside has a sand pit, a fishing pond with magnet fish, a couple playhouses, a big rope dome to climb, and a mining station. The mining is an extra charge and you have to purchase the bags of sand/gems at the front desk. Once back inside there is Adventure Time that starts every two hours and is so. much. fun. It starts with Story Time, then the kiddos get to create art like Michelangelo, and after they finished their masterpiece they get to cook! Well it's not REALLY cooking but they do create awesome edible crafts. The lovely hosts do all the baking if the week's theme calls for a spider cookie or pizza face or whatever. If you are hungry after all that play you can order adult size food from the cafe. So that my friends is why Paradise Park is so fantabulous!!!