Night At the Museum

Well, actually it was day at the museum. Night at the Museum is Zane's newest favorite movie. He absolutely loves it. Lucky for us, I found the Museum of Natural History down in Mesa. What a gem! We didn't tell Zane where we were going and when he walked into the atrium and saw the mammoth, his jaw dropped and he got so excited. It was such an amazing museum with tons to see and experience and I can't believe that we had never been before! I took a million pictures and had a hard time narrowing them down, so this is a pretty picture-heavy post. 

Leila found so many cool things. She's so cute.

Cute Sophie thought everything was pretty cool too.

Clay and I are pretty sure we have a little science nerd on our hands. Which is awesome... we love nerds!

There were so many places in the museum where the kids could experience things hands on. It was so great!

We learned all about mining. We got to walk through a mine shaft. We even got to pan for gold!

Finding the tiny little pyrite flakes was serious business for Clay. Obviously.

Our little paleontologists got to dig for dinosaur bones. They were so excited.

Sophie found ways to entertain herself wherever we went.

We got to jump into an old western movie using a green screen.

This guy is from South America but Zane was convinced it was the Easter Island head from the movie. The one that says, "Dumb dumb, me want gum gum." He was more than a little concerned that it was going to start talking to him. We tried to lighten things up a little by picking it's nose.

Apparently, the building where the museum is now used to be a jail back in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Part of the ground floor is exactly how the jail was back then. We got to go hang out in the cells.

Leila's face in this picture cracks me up! She's my little mini-me.

The kids (with a little help from Clay) put the 3D mammoth puzzle together.

And Sophie tried to help reconstruct some pottery. We gave up on that one pretty quickly.

We found more dinosaur bones. Triceratops has always been my favorite. Aren't Zane and Leila the cutest little triceratops' you've ever seen?

Zane was crazy excited that there was a sign on this fossil that said "PLEASE TOUCH" and he took full advantage.

Best posers ever.

 Sophie is cracking up in this picture. I love that it looks like she's terrified though. My kids are the best.

Sophie thought these fish (the only living things on display in the museum) were pretty cool.

Zane just finished up a unit on the solar system in preschool. The outer space room was pretty awesome. And we even got to touch a real meteorite.

So weird...

 Clay wants you to know that he has been there.

There was so much more that we didn't even get to see! We are all so excited to go back again soon. We are so happy we found this little gem in the desert!