Forget everything your mother told you about writing on the walls.
Unless, of course, Mom was one of those free-spirited types who didn't worry about your wax-based artwork covering each inch of her home.
At The Crayola Experience™, 30 Centre Square, Easton, Pa., there are plenty of on- and off-the-wall canvases for little ones to experiment with their artistic side.
A recent trip from Scranton with my wife, Lyndsey, and our kids - Taryn, 8, and John, 3 - took us through the unique experience of painting with melted crayon wax at Crayola Meltdown, the joy of coloring on an indoor streetscape at the Chalk Walk, and the excitement of posing for our own coloring pages with Spider-Man and some Disney princesses in the "Be the Star" Photobooth.
August's other activities - including a scavenger hunt for four unique crayons such as the elusive pink flamingo - are jungle-themed, from the paper safari satchels to the watercolor-painted do-it-yourself binoculars. The safari theme continues through September 2012.
Each stop offered plenty of fun for kids of all ages. It was just as tough to pry my wife away from her Jackson Pollock-inspired frog in Meltdown as it was to remove my 3-year-old son from the Glow Galaxy or my daughter from creating her own 12-piece puzzle.
Some projects, admittedly, required a bit more focus. I found myself moving quickly from room to room in order to keep up with John as Taryn was content being with Lyndsey and finishing project after project to bring home after our day trip.
The area of downtown Easton surrounding the Experience offered up some additional family fun with a stop at the Purple Cow Creamery, 15 S. Bank St., and a brief but enjoyable run through the Scott Park playground on the banks of the Delaware River.
Our trip was complete with a cruise through The Crayola Store, 18 Centre Square, where the kids found ways to bring their new-found creativity home after posing for a picture with the world's largest crayon. SPOILER ALERT: It's blue.
Admission is reasonably priced at $12 per person, especially since your admission sticker allows you to come and go as you please. We also "splurged" on three $4 spin art frisbees. (I safely opted out in case John lost interest, which clearly wasn't the case once he started shooting colors onto his circular masterpiece.)
You'll likely find us back again in a year or two, when John is a little more willing to take time to stop and smell the rose-colored crayons.
Guest blogger Christopher J. Hughes is a multimedia journalist living in Scranton, Pa. He is the online editor for The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre.