Aidan's big Day

It was Aidan's birthday yesterday. My baby boy turned 8. We found ourselves in a bit of a pickle as it was a school day but also a day to be celebrated. So being the good homeschool family that we are we declared it Field Trip Day and took the kids into Philly to look through the Natural History Museum. We have been studying Dinosaurs in Science and knew that they would love the hall of dinosaurs. We began our tour through the diorama exhibits. We all loved seeing the animals and were amazed at the size of some of them.

Brea and Aidan enjoyed pretending that they were going to be the polar bears snack after he polished off the seal that is under his paw.

Emily being ever so patient waiting for the two little hooligans to finish goofing around.

Next stop the hall of dinosaurs.

This was our first sight of the dinosaurs. Needless to say the kids did not use their inside voices and throughout the entire hall you could hear the kids shouting "it's Rexy!" of Night in the Museum fame. At least we provided entertainment for the guards.

It was awesome to be able to put a visual picture to all the words we have been studying.

The final stop on the tour was the Outside In room. In this room they have all sorts of animals that you can see and touch. Everything from hissing cockroaches, to turtles, to a bee colony, to the rabbit and snake that we were able to touch.

Yes that is a skunk you see. Yipes!

Did you notice that a kid was missing in these pictures?? Where is Brea??

This was definitely not her favorite stop on the tour. So she put herself in the corner and waited until we had all seen enough of the "yucky stuff". It was a great time! The kids loved being in the city. We took time for one last stop to visit the fountains and gardens across the street from the museum.

The bee colony from the outside in room has a tunnel through the window allowing the bees to leave the exhibit and return back. The gardens across the street were filled with the bees gathering to take back to the colony. It was just another exciting find for the kids.

I hope that this will be a birthday memory that last's forever.