A Visit Downtown

Yesterday, Shen and I took the girls downtown to visit the Natural History Museum and picnic on the Mall.  Like I said in my previous post, I’m going to miss these days of just “doing whatever” without the school schedule to factor in!

The girls really enjoyed the museum.  Nina, Lyla, and I visited here last summer, but it was still fun for my girls to visit again – especially with their cousins this time.  Here they are in the jaws of a Great White Shark!

The dinosaur and fossil exhibits are always a lot of fun. 

  

We had Ryleigh take this picture by the big bird skeleton because when she was three or four, she was pecked on the shoulder by an emu at a little animal park down at Hartfield.  The story has gone on to be highly dramatized between the cousins with everyone now very wary and concerned over emus. 

We also visited the butterfly exhibit again this year.  While I thought the variety of exotic looking butterflies was a little less impressive than last year when we went, we still saw some beautiful butterflies and moths, and it was always exciting when a butterfly would briefly land on one of the girls.

 

 

This guy, hanging on the bottom of a leaf, was one of my favorites!

We weren’t supposed to touch the butterflies on purpose, but if one landed on us, we didn’t have to remove it.  Nina was so excited when this one walked on her hand.  It just so happened that Nina’s hand was sitting flat on the wall where the butterfly was crawling along.  She was thrilled that it crawled on her hand and she got to hold it there for a bit.

After a full visit at the museum, we did some snacking and people watching on the mall and then ventured back home before the five little cousins turned into five little monsters!