HMNS

Today we used a Groupon to go to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Going to the museum was one of my favorite field trips as a kid. We would walk around, seeing everything the museum had to offer, visit the IMAX or Butterfly center, then cross the street to Herman Park for our sack lunch and rolling down the "hill". I still love the museum, but had noticed over our past few visits how outdated everything looked. Everywhere you turned, the '70s was calling and wanted their displays back. I wanted to enjoy myself, but I kept getting distracted from the orange, brown, and gold colors, the retro displays, and less than interactive exhibits. I wrote a year ago about how the new Dinosaur exhibit had blown us away and we were so happy to see the changes being made to the museum. Those updates and changes have continued! The kids and I were able to investigate the New Egypt exhibit and the Native American exhibit as well as ambling through the dinosaurs. I wish I had more time to look through Egypt and Native America. The girls were convinced that it was a maze and their only purpose was to find their way out. I tried to slow them down to show them some of the neat stuff we were passing by, only to be met with "Yeah, mom, let's go this way!" The Egypt exhibit has architectural details and a layout to help remind you of what ancient Egypt looked like and the Native America exhibit was a great combination of displays of artifacts and posters or pictures. The girls also liked the gems and jewels exhibit so they could find their favorite colors in the gems and they "picked out" the jewels they wanted because they "had enough money". I think HMNS is doing a fantastic job of making sure the new exhibits are fresh and interesting in order to draw more young (and old) learners in. I also have to figure out a way to go see the Jerusalem IMAX. First problem- no time to go during the day. Second problem- regular IMAX makes me incredibly motion sick, this one is 3-D and I want to barf just thinking about it. But like I told Matt, it would actually make me feel more like when I was in Israel since I got horribly sick towards the end of my trip there. But that is another story for another time!