Field trip

We went to the LA Museum of Natural History to cap off Bubby's unit on dinosaurs. It was more fun than I thought it would be and the kids really enjoyed themselves, even Itty-Bitty (who at one, isn't really old enough to appreciate a museum, let alone its architecture, but I digress). This is her, mid-whoa. While looking at the North American dioramas, she was literally whooping her arms, up and down while going "Whoa!"


They had this life-sized puppet for their Dinosaur Encounter:


The kids were entranced. It was a 14-foot puppet with someone inside controlling it, after all. And I learned that tyrranosaurs probably had feathers on them. And that they gained five pounds a day in adolescence, while maturing to adulthood. (And I thought I gained a lot while I was pregnant!) This was about when my camera battery died, so that's all of the usable picture I have. Afterwards we broke for lunch, then went back in to check out the Gems and Minerals exhibit. It was really cool, but I'm not sure how much the kids enjoyed it, although Itty-Bitty enjoyed putting her mouth on the petrified wood (which I was not thrilled about, ewwww).

They had a lot of pretty things in there though, and I learned about benitoite, which is not only California's state gem (since it supposedly is available in gem quality only from San Benito County, California) but has the color of a sapphire and the diffraction of a diamond (sold me). I linked to a gem seller rather than a wiki page because they had prettier pictures.

After a certain point though, Bubby was tired. Itty-Bitty was already tired, so we headed home. It was a good trip.