The Butterfly Conservatory

A while back I bought a groupon for a set of four tickets to visit the butterfly exhibit down at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences. As the months passed, I realized it was going to expire if we didn't use it up before the end of the year. So a few days before Christmas, my mom and I decided to break down and take the boys in to the city for a fun day. Had we known how cool and fun the trip would be, I'm sure we would have gone much sooner! And I think my mom and I were every bit as fascinated as the boys. After the museum we rode the kids train around the park nearby, too. So fun, and great weather! I haven't seen that same groupon lately, but if it pops back up we'll definitely be doing it again!

Riding the giant caterpillar just inside the exhibit doors

Upon entering, you first go through a museum-style section where you get to look at displays of bugs, caterpillars, butterflies, etc. Very creepy crawly! There's also lots of hands on, interactive activities that I'm sure the boys will be more in to when they're a little bit older.

You then enter the actual butterfly conservatory at the top and work your way down. Rudy was very skeptical at the butterflies flying every where when we first entered!

Thinking we were really clever, we opted to take the stroller in with us instead of my baby carrier, thinking we'd be there for a while and it would be better to be able to set Grant down and help out the other two boys. Bad idea. We didn't realize the conservatory part is a massive circuit of stairs from top to bottom so no strollers are allowed in the entire exhibit. We had it park it in the supervised lobby and carry the chunk the whole way. No carrier. Note to self: always throw the carrier in the bottom of the stroller...just in case! Good thing he's such a happy baby and was just along for the ride as usual.

Pretty butterflies!

We had a contest going to see who would have a butterfly land on them first. And Pinkie won! I'm pretty sure they were attracted to the hairspray.

Even I was shocked at how well this picture came out! Love my boys!

Riding the train! (Grant was crashed by this point.)

So much fun!

And of course they had to check out the locomotive. A great end to such a fun day!