denver nature and science museum

day two of living the city life took us to the Denver Nature and Science Museum, which is right next door to the zoo and a short, easy drive from the hotel. the girls love all things dinosaur related, so the fact that there is a life size t.rex skeleton meant that we really needed to go check it out ourselves! it's a pretty great museum in general and there were alot of neat exhibits to see, including a space exhibit that would make Pop Pop very proud ;)

aside from the awesome Discovery Room (anyone want to dig for fossils and learn how animals walk by demonstrating it on stage?), the biggest hits were either the massive dinosaur skeletons or the various animal displays. unfortunately by the time we had hung out in the Discovery Room and were ready to explore some more, the entire museum was packed with school kids. i think i'd recommend not taking small children to this museum during the school week as it was just too crowded and chaotic to really enjoy and navigate. we briefly checked out the space exhibit before heading out of the chaos and back to the hotel for a well-deserved nap. overall it was still great and the girls enjoyed themselves, but next time i think we'll save our visit for a quite saturday morning instead!

on a related note, asami and dave have done the smart thing and actually purchased memberships to the zoo, museum, and the butterfly pavillion. i say smart because not only does it make great economic sense (entrance gets pricey for a family, even once) but it also lets them visit as much as they want, without the pressure of feeling like they need to see every last corner of the place to get their money's worth. because they can, asami takes the kids to these places once a week or so and they stay as little or as long as they like. a very great bonus (especially for us!) is that they get free guest passes too, and have generously shared them with us on this trip. we are so very grateful... thanks guys :)