Houston Museum of Natural Science and Butterfly Pavilion

Now that we live in the suburbs, I try to get my city fix at least twice a month.  A few Fridays ago, we decided to check out the museum with our friend R and Miss Molly. The museum had a big exhibit about dinosaurs and I thought Piper would love to see the fossils.  We walked through each dinosaur time period and saw some pretty amazing dinosaurs.  It was pretty dark, so I couldn't take as many pictures as I wanted, but the craziest thing we saw was a prehistoric shark- it was HUGE.  I also learned that there were saber-toothed dinosaurs during one of the eras.  The girls wanted to climb on top of the displays and touch the fossils, but after getting scolded several times by security, they were content to just stand in front of them.

T-Rex! Run away, run away!!

After we walked through the "Hall of Paleontology", we headed over to see the butterflies.  I think the girls would've been plumb happy if we'd just done this the entire time, but now I know for the future. This was probably the best butterfly house I've ever been to.  The butterflies were super active and plentiful.  They also had a bug house where you could see lots of yucky creepy crawlies.  I did not take any pictures of those because I didn't want to be reminded of all the ickies that live in nature *shudder*

Some photo ops are awesome in theory.  This was not one of them.  Piper was not happy at all to be on that giant caterpillar

Choke hold or hug? 

Piper had a very friendly butterfly land on her hand.  She was tickled pink to have such a friend!

Apparently, Brynn had a little butterfly friend as well.  We don't know when this little guy hitched a ride, but he was happy to be on Brynn.  I think he was attracted to her blue shirt. 

"Say hello to my little friend"

And in case you missed the butterfly, Piper was sure to point it out to everyone

After seeing the butterfly on Brynnie, Piper wanted one too. Umm, can't take them home sweetie.

We finally were able to drag the girls from the butterfly house with the promise of a visit to the gift shop.  $7.00 later, we went to the "Gem House" where the moms oohed and ahhed and the girls played with the $7 toy from the gift shop. 

We finally decided to pack it up after the gems, Piper and I had a train to catch back to the zoo where we parked and then we had a 45minute drive in rush hour.  It was definitely a fun day trip!