Family Outing- January

When I was a little girl my family would go and visit the Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah about once a month. At that point my parents had three children all of whom loved dinosaurs. We walked through the exhibits in awe and wonder and loved to learn and read about everything. I remember that after those visits my younger siblings talked about being archaeologists.

Years went by and the wonder and excitement of dinosaurs and fossils faded as they do with most children and our monthly outings to the museum were abandoned for outings that better suited the growing family.

Last year we decided that we would start taking our own little family on monthly outings. Each parent and child would have a chance to chose where we went on a different month. I was so excited. I wanted to take my kids to the museum I loved as a child. So when it was my month I looked online to check the hours and what do you know, they were closed and moving to a new facility.

January 2012 was my turn to pick again and finally the new museum was open. We bundled up all four kids and ventured out into a rather rainy Saturday morning and headed to the U.

I just have to say that I love the new museum. There are so many more hands on things for the kids to play with and explore. While we were there we learned about...

Archaeology in the archaeology pit.
Erosion by playing with the sand and water.
Rocks. By touching and climbing on them.
And cells by putting them back together.

Then of course it was time for everyone's favorites...the dinosaurs.....

The kids loved them and I loved the clear flooring that you got to walk through and see beneath into fake dig sites. It freaked me out a bit though too. There is something about walking on a see through floor that makes you feel you will fall at any moment.

There was one particular piece that I really wanted the kids to see that I remembered from my visits as a child. It was a foot print of a duckbill dinosaur. I loved it when I was little. I remember climbing all over it. Luckily, we found it right before we were about to leave.

Other great things we learned on this trip- Matty's stroller allows him to sit up. Of course we figured this out about half way through the trip (we felt a bit stupid as it was a simple thing to do) and by that time he just wanted to lay down again and take a nap.