The Houston Museum of Natural Science

There is a fantastic museum in downtown Houston called the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It's full of great exhibits, it has a butterfly center, an IMAX theater, a planetarium, on-going special exhibits, AND it's right next to a zillion other great places to visit downtown (e.g. the zoo, tons of other museums, a huge beautiful park with an outdoor theater, a train, a lake with pedal-boats, a Japanese garden, playgrounds, nature trails, and a splash pad). Jeff and I are planning on getting season passes the next time we go.

Our first visit to the museum was on a Saturday in September and it was FREE admission day, so it was busy. Crazy busy. The crowds were intense and it was a little tricky maneuvering Luke's stroller around, but it was worth it. And when we have season passes, we can go during the day on Fridays (Jeff has every other Friday off of work) when no one will be there! We'll have the place to ourselves! And we were informed on this trip that in summer of 2012, they will be opening a HUGE new paleontology wing (2-stories and as the size of a football field). It will be geared towards kids, with interactive exhibits, and over 50 new dinosaurs (currently, the museum only has 5) all in action poses (i.e. fighting each other). We're excited!

Luke loved pushing the button and making this display light up in the Energy Hall. He is trying very hard to be patient and wait his turn.

Jeff and Luke with some of the dinosaurs. Jeff and I enjoyed walking around reading and seeing which bones were real and which were fake.

This was Luke's favorite part of the museum - the African Wildlife hall. He smiled at this ferocious feline and "talked" happily to it. Every time I started to walk out of this area holding Luke's hand, he would pretend like he was going to cooperate and walk along side me, but then he would suddenly speed walk around in a half-circle, spinning me around 180 degrees, and run back in chattering and pointing at each of the animals in the displays as he went. He even tried to point a few of them out to strangers as if to say, "Are you seeing this?! Can you believe that bird is just sitting there right in front of us and not flying away?!"

After a while, we decided to head out to Herman Park, which is literally just outside the museum doors for a lunch break. We enjoyed a few of the tasty snacks from the package my mom had sent us and then we went and fed the ducks in the reflection pool a slice of bread. Luke loves feeding the ducks. He really just loves feeding any animal.

We went back into the museum to hit the last few halls that we had yet to see, including the Malacology hall, where Jeff and I each picked out our favorite shell. Jeff's favorite was one we dubbed, the "Rambo Shell" because it looked like it was carrying all sorts of weapons. Mine was a beautiful shell that looked like something you might find in The Little Mermaid, which is at least part of why I liked it so much.

The Rambo Shell. Awesome, right?

On the way home, we stopped at a car wash so that Jeff could vacuum out the Accord. He vacuumed Luke's hair while he was at it, leaving Luke with a pretty sweet do ...

If you're looking for a way to style your hair, I'm pretty sure vacuuming isn't the way to go.

As you can see, it was a pretty powerful vacuum.