Dinosaur Museum

Let's talk about the absurd things children do when cooped up in an apartment for too long. Ask for a bite of butter, yes my kids eat it by the butter-knife-full, then proceed to spread said butter onto the floor like it is toast while crying about not wanting butter, throw small toilets across the room because you really just don't want to go potty right now, cry because your 2 year old brother will not help you rebuild the bike course you made that you knocked over because you were trying to open a plastic drawer while also rolling around on the floor, load up everything you can find into the hamper and pretend your packing up, and saying, "watch out, here comes the big tooter" then proceeding to do a front flip onto the couch from the arm rest and miraculously not injure yourself...needless to say we needed to get out of the house today. We made it a dinosaur day and started out at the Dinosaur Park which is free, outside, a little treacherous feeling, but a really fun time and a great workout. I posted previously about the Dinosaur Park here (the pictures are lacking in the old post and this new one because most of them include the boys' faces). 

Then after nap and karate we went to the Dinosaur Museum. If you’re a one time traveler driving through Rapid City, the Dinosaur Museum is a bit of a tourist trap. We ended up with a season pass here and the boys love it. They have life size dinosaurs on display as well as a few fossils. There’s a fun excavating sand area for the kiddos, a mirror maze, mini gold, and a mini movie theater playing an educational dinosaur video straight from my 8th grade classroom. I do wish I had the exhibit of hominid skulls to show my 8th graders from years past because man they sure are cool! Especially the one that looks like another caveman clubbed him before he died. The boys think it is the most special experience to get to sit in that little theater and watch the movie. They ask to go to this place constantly and honestly because it takes about 30 minutes to get through, it’s easy for me to oblige! We’ve been here twice. Some highlights from today were seeing a bluejay egg and hypothesizing that the egg we saw on the trail this weekend was a bluejay. M got a big kick out of comparing the picture to the real one on display. M also scored a hole in one on the last hole in mini golf. He was so proud. X’s accomplishment was losing his golf ball somewhere on the course. I thought the boys might be scared of some of the displays because Jurassic park still haunts my childhood dreams, but they laugh about them being scary and silly looking.