Museum Day

Me: do y’all want to go to the trampoline park tomorrow?

Leo: I’d rather go to a museum….

So we did. 

Touching sharks and rays

First stop was the Sea Center on the Santa Barbara pier, 

always a favorite with its hands-on exhibits 

Exploring sediment from the ocean floor - Jac found a tiny live crab!

and friendly docents (mostly college age kids).

We thought about going to SB’s Natural History museum next … 

The octopus was the most active I’ve ever seen - fun to watch

before I remembered the Moxie kid’s museum (here) that we’d talked about visiting but never got around to.  

So fun! Another great place for hands-on exploration (the third floor roof top exhibits were especially fun.)

Me, Jac and Grape, the lavender octopus 

We let our membership to the SB Zoo lapse, thinking the kids were getting too old to enjoy it… guess where else Leo wants to go? 

Gotta re-visit all the fun places before the girls move in late August. 😭

Music, Motion and Butterflies

As hoped, the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery was a big hit but not nearly as big as The Butterfly House. 

 Adding a butterfly, ferret, baby bison and hedgehog to the stuffie collection. Her parents will be so pleased. 😜

To ensure we had enough energy, we started with lunch at Querks Eatery, a fairly new place that serves…. mac n cheese made with bacon and pimento cheese! I was in heaven 

Sound and energy waves made by dancing to music

The Discovery exhibits are all kid friendly and touchable (and pound-able; these kids are not gentle.) Jac enjoyed the small collection of live creatures - 

The algae-cleaning suckerfish was her fav. 

fish, lizards, frogs and an entire bee hive, with an observation window, behind one of the walls - 

but she also liked the keyboards, 

drum sets!

lifting a piano, the tornado machine, 

wall of gears and so much more. 

The “skin” exhibit also got high marks with Jac, 

while I especially liked the wooden water pipe. 

(I never thought about underground pipes being made of wood.

Am I the only one who didn’t know this??)

Visiting the butterfly habitat was Rachel’s idea

and Jac said it was her favorite part of the day. 

Unlike the “pop up” seasonal exhibits near us, 

this is a year-round sanctuary for butterflies, 

a few moths 

and beautiful plants. 

We did three complete circuits of the (fairly small) building, 

discovering more flutterbyes each time. 

Jac would happily have stayed here all afternoon. 

The nursery. As soon as the wings of newly hatched butterflies have dried, they are released into the habitat.

A few more of the 115-ish photos I took, plus some of Jac’s and Rachel’s … (to see a bigger, more detailed pic just click/tap on any photo.)

Camouflaged