Natural Science Museum!

Since the boys had a 4-day weekend, we decided to go downtown and check out the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh today.

I've wanted to check this museum out for awhile now.

Cool globe out front!

Silly boys!

All three boys enjoyed the museum but Henry definitely seemed to get the most of out it-- which isn't surprising considering he absolutely loves anything animal-related.

I think Henry would have checked out
the frogs and bugs all day if the
other boys would have let him!

One of the Woodland exhibits...

You may recall that Henry has wanted a Venus Fly Trap for some time now (we recently purchased our second seedling packet/ terrarium and, just like the first, it fell over and splattered everywhere before it began to sprout.  Sigh.)  Here he and Peter are checking out indigenous, carnivorous plants (which, incidentally enough, are more plentiful in NC than anywhere else in the world.  Who knew?).

 A snapping turtle (who had such a cute little face!)...

 T-Rex!

The museum was almost empty since
all area kids were in school today.

 More dinosaurs...

Peter entering the "under water" exhibit...

The museum had an entire floor dedicated to Anthropods (an invertebrate animal of the large phylum Arthropoda, such as an insect, spider or crustacean)...

 The boys got to pet a blue-tongued skink...

I passed on this opportunity. 

Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures in the Butterfly Room but it was awesome!  There were probably 10-15 different types of butterflies flying around.  The museum guides handed out information sheets so we could identify and find the different types.  Some even landed on us!

A beautiful day!

After almost two hours the boys asked if we could go to Marbles Children's Museum (literally around the corner from the Science Museum) so we did.  We had such a fun day together.  I love taking the boys to new museums and with Chris away, it's the perfect all-day activity.  I need to start researching the next one for us to visit...