Last week I took Elora out of school early to take a trip to the Paunsagant Wildlife Museum which is near Bryce Canyon. Elora was soooo excited to go to a museum, it has been awhile!
Here we are at the entrance to the museum. The kids really liked this statue, especially the scary eyes.
And Marion really liked the rocks outside. Because there is nothing better to chew on than rocks. When I took my three kids in, the owner of the museum looked at them and said, “Will they be… okay? Can you watch all of them? You really have your hands full.” Ha! I think he was pretty worried that my kids would trash the place… He did tell me that a 2 year old had recently done $8000 worth of damage to one of the animals in the museum. No wonder he was worried.
Marion loved all the animals. She barked and meowed the whole time we were in the museum.
This was Elora’s favorite part of the museum. The whole upper floor had cases of butterflies and bugs lining the walls. Elora is pointing at the azure butterfly which is her favorite kind.
Elora was wondering why the deer had a black tongue. I am afraid I couldn’t answer that question, I didn’t realize deer did have black tongues. Although this is not a deer, it is an antelope of some kind.
The kids loved the baby ostriches coming out the eggs. The displays in the museum were very well done with a lot of detail. They even had bugs and little lizards and things in each display.
Oliver liked all the instruments in the Africa room. He was wondering if he could play the funny guitar. He was a bit disappointed when I informed him he could only look and not touch the instruments.
I had printed out some worksheets for the kids to color at the museum. Oliver had a coloring page where he could find and color animals he saw in the musuem, and Elora had a neat workbook I found online with questions about animals living in different habitats and places to draw. She worked very hard to color a crane she saw on the wall on her page about animals that migrate. I should take a picture to post, it was such a great drawing. I think Elora would have stayed all afternoon to color pictures of the animals, she really enjoyed that part of our visit.
Here my kids are pretending to be mountain lions. Oliver is making a pretty awesome super-hero mountain lion pose.
Elora was so sweet finding neat things to show her brother in all the displays. She had found some neat Native American artifacts to show him in this display case.
There was a place to feed some deer at the museum. As we were leaving the owner of the museum complimented me on how well behaved my children are. Then as we talked about where I am from, he realized that I know a good friend of his and gave us free corn to feed the deer. Nice.
Oliver liked feeding the deer, but really he liked…
chasing chickens!!!
Marion loved the deer. She pointed and barked and tried to pet them. She had a really great time with the chickens also.
After the museum we headed over to Red Canyon for a small hike and picnic before heading home. Marion was excited to walk freely (since she spent most of the museum being carried so she wouldn’t break anything!)
The kids loved the way the rocks on the mountain look. They started looking for a nice castle to live in and hiked up the mountain to find the perfect place to “live”. The big gray rock on the left was the place they decided on for a castle and they were quite the little hikers to get all the way up to it.
Marion decided she wanted to carry the lunch sack. She got really mad every time I tried to carry it for her. She is quite the determined little baby. She wanted to walk everywhere by herself, even when she kept fally down.
I am not sure what Oliver was doing, but it looked pretty funny in the picture. I think he pretending to duel something… Crazy little guy.
Here is my happy hiker. I am going to have to take her hiking more. She LOVES being outside and exploring. Good thing we live in the perfect location for exploring!
I wanted to take a picture of the kids, and they decided it would be REALLY funny to hide from the camera. I wish I could have seen their little faces, they were giggling away.
I finally snapped a picture of Oliver during one of the moments when he was peeking out of his hiding place. Oliver really had a fun day. That night when he was praying he said thank you for Red Canyon four times.
Here are my kidlets, all happy to be outside and together. We had such a great day together. We are planning on visiting every museum we can find in the area as well as planning some fun hikes to do once a week. We weren’t getting to spend much time with Elora now that she is in school a full day, so we decided once a week she can come home after lunch and we can go have some time together exploring new places near our home. Our first day was a complete success and I am looking forward to planning more fun activities to do with the kids!
