Butterfly House

The girls and I visited a local natural history museum & wildlife preserve today. We got in for free because our membership to the children's museum in Salt Lake is part of the same museum association and this museum honors the membership! Woot! Yay for free admission! There are actually three museums nearby here in Texas that we can get into for free with our pass. (Awesome!)

So today we decided we would try the natural history museum because they are featuring a butterfly house during the summer, and that sounded like the perfect outing for two little girls. Plus the weather was awesome today--low 70's with an overcast sky--which was perfect for a not-too-hot day at an outdoor nature preserve.

The butterfly house - "Native Butterflies of Texas"

There were several different kinds of native Texas flowers lining both sides of the mesh enclosure and butterflies fluttering around everywhere.

You can't really see any butterflies in this photo, but it's the only picture I have of both girls while they were in the house. (Ava fell asleep while we were in there.)

Here's a video of them though:

Sara leaning in to get a closer look.

Sara wore her special butterfly dress that Grandma Christine made for her. This was the perfect occasion for it! 

Sara also brought her special jewel-encrusted gold butterfly pin with her to show to the real butterflies. Here she is holding it up to a chart of native Texas butterflies.

She was also using her butterfly pin as a pretend camera! See the cluster of three butterflies she was trying to take a photo of?

Here is the shot she was trying to capture (taken on my phone's camera). 

We kept seeing butterflies land on other people, and then one finally landed on Sara's head! 

And then one landed on a special card Sara colored for the butterflies. Sara took this as a sign that they liked the pictures she drew for them! :)

The butterfly house was part of a wildlife preserve that also had lots of nature walks and animal enclosures. We enjoyed walking along a nice wooded trail for a bit. 

Ava was still asleep during our nature walk, and I left the stroller in the car. DOH!

Sara balancing on the boards along the edge of the trail. 

The path we walked along opened up to this beautiful clearing with a field of tall Texas prairie grass and a view of more trees beyond. 

Ava finally woke up for the last part of our nature walk. She loved it!

On the wilderness preserve area, there was also a little section of miniature pioneer-type houses. The girls had fun exploring each of them. 

And they loved these metal turtle statues. We had to visit them again on our way out!

Not pictured is the Museum portion which was in the main building we passed through before going outside to the wilderness preserve. The museum had lots of fun things to explore, like wildlife, lava rocks, crystals, sea shells, sea turtles, snakes, spiders, a dinosaur fossil dig (which Sara LOVED! "I'm so curious!" she kept saying as she brushed the sand off each piece of the pretend fossil.) Sara also had fun in the shell room. She kept trying to find a shell that looked like Sebastian's from the Little Mermaid. :) And I was impressed by how much Sara learned about the volcanic rock section. I was telling her how each type of rock was made, and then when someone else came to look at it, she repeated all the info back to them in great detail! Although the museum was older than some we have been to, the exhibits and displays were informative and interactive and fun! 

We all had a great day at the Heard Museum! 

Backyard Camping

Sara has been asking and asking to go camping, but now that it is November, we've kind of missed the warm weather window of good camping time. Plus, we don't own a tent. Not a real camping tent anyway. The only tent we have is a little child pop-up tent from IKEA. So today after much asking, and because of a somewhat warm Autumn day, I decided to take the girls "camping" in our backyard.

First we gathered the necessary supplies. Rob printed out a little checklist for her with things like a tent, sleeping bag, flashlight, compass, camera, binoculars, fishing pole, etc. We gathered as much as we could, then went outside to setup our little play tent.

Then it was time to make a "fire" out of sticks and a few branches of red leaves from one of the bushes in our yard.

And what do you do at a campfire? Roast marshmallows of course!

After filling up on marshmallows it was time for some nature exploration.

Then back to the campsite for more fun climbing on the log and chairs...

more "sleeping" in the tent...

and eating more marshmallows!

I think the girls liked it. Now we will have to take them real camping sometime! Anyone have a tent we can borrow?!

Time to buy new snow pants?

We got our first snowfall of the year on October 25. Not much, but enough to play in for a bit. I pulled out Sara's old snow clothes that she has worn for the past two winters. They are size 18-months. Sara will be 4 in December. ... What do you think; will they last another year?!

Here's a fun video of Sara playing in the snow.



Then a few weeks later we got more snow, and this time it was over a foot deep!

She seems to be doing just fine in those too-small snow clothes! But I suppose we should break down and buy some new ones.

That's all! :)

Sprinklers

It's been hot! And what a better way for a little girl to cool off than to run through the sprinklers?!

Sara thought it was fun to try to drink the water.

Silly Sara. Why don't kids this age know how to smile for the camera?!

Aviary / 9th Anniversary

On our 9th wedding anniversary (back in May), we took Sara to the Tracy Aviary to see some exotic birds. We didn't take any photos of Rob and me while we were there, but we should have because it is a beautiful setting! In fact, there was a wedding going on at the Aviary that day; that's how beautiful it is there.

Most of the birds are enclosed at the aviary, but peacocks are allowed to roam free throughout the park. Here was our first peacock sighting:

We tried to get him to open his feathers for us, but no luck. 

There was a sand pit at the aviary that showed different things like how much a pelican can hold in its bill, for example. Sara could have spent all day there digging in the dirt. We were there to see some cool birds, but Sara was more interested in digging! Guess we need to find a hands-on archeology museum to visit next.

I believe these were black-necked swans? Or geese maybe? Not sure.

Sara loved the flamingos!

Another peacock sighting, this time with his feathers displayed!

Well I guess we did get a photo of all 3 of us after all. :)

Another thing Sara could have spent all day doing: playing on the big rocks! Why did we pay to see the birds when all we needed to do is go up the canyon and find some rocks for Sara to climb?!

It's kind of a long video, but Sara is pretty cute in it pretending to be a king in her castle, and also pretending to swim away from sharks. Here's how it all went down:

Me: Whatcha doin?

Sara: Swimming from the shark's pool!

Me: Swimming from the sharks?

{Sara pretending to swim}

Sara: Mommy you're the princess and I the King, k?

Me: K, "Hi King" -- are you the king or the queen?

Sara: The king, and you're the princess.

Me: "Hi King, I'm the princess" 

Sara: "Hi"

Me: Should we go look at more birds?

Sara: (As the King) "No, we should stay here, in our home, because this shark is not good for us, but let's ride on him so he can't see us, k?"

Me: OK

Sara: C'mon, let's ride on the shark.

{Sara moving over to the other rock, aka the shark}

Me: Is that the shark?

Sara: Yep! I used to swim on him all day, but I need to swim, and then I'll get on him. 

{Sara sits on shark rock -- unintelligible words}

Sara: Let's go home, k?

Me: K

Sara: 'cause swimming, fun swimming on that shark, huh. {responds to herself} It sure was!

-- Kudos to you if you actually watched that whole video. It's pretty cute, but maybe only if you're me. :)

Oh ya, and guess what else Sara loved at the aviary? You guessed it, jumping on the logs. 

So even though Sara loved exploring the wilderness more than she did actually seeing the birds (with the exception of the peacocks and flamingos, which she was way excited about), it was a fun afternoon at the aviary. 

That night to celebrate our 9th anniversary, we dropped Sara off at Rob's parent's house so we could go out to dinner. Rob chose a great restaurant called Pago (Artisan, Local, Farm Fresh) in the 9th and 9th district of Salt Lake. Appropriate location for a 9th anniversary dinner, don't you think?! We sat outside in their quaint little patio, and the food was delicious!

Here's the photo Sara took of us before we left for dinner. Quite the budding photographer, eh? 

Happy 9th Anniversary!