Dinosaur Museum

We renewed our membership to Thanksgiving Point in April when I took Iveth to see the Tulip Festival. After that, Corey used it once to take the kids and our friend Junior there for Mel's Lyceum concert, but I haven't been back yet. Seems like a good time to put that membership back to good use, so for now we're gonna say today is "Tiffanie Tuesday", which means that I get to choose the activity, so let's go! We left around 6 right as Corey was getting home (which was good cause he has a lot of work he needs to do). Peter cried the whole drive there. I think he was worried we were driving to California again! He was fine, but it's always sad to hear him crying uncontrollably. We started off in the dinosaur dig area where I could sit and nurse Peter while they played.

He was very animated as he talked some gibberish stuff with an excited "DINOSAUR" thrown in the sentence. I had no idea what he was saying, but looked interested and said "wow!" Daniel was really excited about the dinosaur bones!

I brought some toy cars for Owen to use and that was fun too.

Digging for bones with dish washing scrub brushes.  

Daniel again explaining the excavation project they are working on.

So after I fed Peter, we went back out to the beginning of the museum. They liked walking through the dark space/universe bridge thing. Then we were back in prehistoric times looking at trilobites and lots of ancient plants and creatures. Group pic -

And over to the dinosaur area, another group pic!

They had a new area called "Design a Dino" where the kids used random felt pieces on a wall to make creations. They loved that part. Abi's final creation was the "Cirlce of Life" (Dinosaurs eating a prehistoric person)

Sophi's Dino, beach, and boat creation.

Lily made lots of dinosaurs. Daniel didn't help, but wanted to be in the pic.

Natalie did a person on the grass by a river.

Ok, that's enough fun there. Over to the sand table!

Of course they loved that area.

Busy at work, cute in their little aprons.

I nursed Peter. Then looked around. Abi took a picture of me showing Natalie a display of some guy named Homer Behunin from Redmond Utah who in the 60s found all these petrified plants - like small seeds and pinecones.

How the heck he could tell a seed turned into rock from a real rock/pebble is a mystery to me, but some how he could tell!

It was a neat display. And his contribution was significant enough that he made it into a Time Magazine article in 1970. Kids still at the sand table...

Then the museum was close to closing.

Time to finish up.

Unfortunately, that was about the time that Daniel and Owen discovered a little dino costume area.

Daniel took off his jacket, and revealed that he had not worn a shirt, which I was already aware of. He put on the cape, and was a superhero dino. Owen was a stegasaurus

And then they ran around the museum saving the day. But the museum was closing. Of course they didn't care and wouldn't take off the capes. After some vain attempts to get them to take off the capes willingly, I knew I was going to have to force it. And it wasn't going to be pretty.

Thankfully most everyone else was already gone. So I handed Peter to Abi and was able to do the forced de-costume-ing on the boys. Owen came willingly after that, but Daniel was pretty ticked.

 

We got outside, yay. Group pic! But Daniel wouldn't participate.

Poor kid. He wants a dino cape. Too bad we didn't discover that part before it was closing. Sorry Daniel!! Poor tears...

We'll come back soon, sweetie! It wasn't dark yet, so we went to the school park for 30 minutes and then headed home. Peter didn't like the drive in the car again. He's just afraid he's in for another long road trip. He was glad when we parked and spent some quality time smiling at each other.

He is sooooo cute.