A Trip to the Science Museum

Anthony was out of town visiting Britny and Angel in the hospital today, so Mom and I decided to take Nolan for some indoor fun at the Museum of Natural Science in downtown Raleigh.  It had all the qualifications we needed: free, fun, and INSIDE!  Unfortunately, since I had just gotten my stitches out Friday, anything outside for a long time was still off-limits.  But, we made the most of it and had a great time!

 

This mural outside is really cool, and Nolan kept wondering why the bees weren't really.  What?!  Thank goodness they weren't!  They didn't have as many live animals as we did the last time we were there, which would have made things more interesting for him, but the museum is so big we just covered a lot of ground and kept him entertained.

 

I think the COOLEST thing we did (and we never realized was there), was the butterfly atrium on the top floor.  Luckily, we got there within 5 minutes of it opening, so we were the first group in for the day.  It was an atrium with tons of butterflies, a couple of spiders/snakes (in cages), and a two-toed sloth!  This guy was hilarious!  He just hung out and ate his breakfast and stared at all of us.  Good thing this wasn't when I was a kid because I had a very strange fear of them when I was little - ha!

 

We took the freight elevator down on our way out, and you would have thought it was an attraction all to itself!  Nolan decided he needed to run circles while we descended...

 

SO awesome to still be in that cool kid stage where even small things make them happy :)  We only had to spend .51 cents to get him a "Pressed Penny" before we left, and he was happy as a clam.  Hilarious it was .51 cents for a PENNY, but it would have been a lot worse if he had known the gift shop existed!  It's days like this that make me so happy we live close to home now and trips like this are possible with my mom.  Nolan sure loves it and I do too!