Kempsville Natural History Museum

Keona and I have embarked on a new project.  We are going to turn our dilapidated back porch into a natural history museum.  Meet our first exhibit: the scorpion– who has been around since before the dinosaurs and was once up to 3 feet long!…along with many other insects like cockroaches and dinosaurs.  Be on the lookout for our 3 foot dragonfly!  Our museum will include a Hall of Sea Creatures, Hall of Insects and Arachnids, Hall of Amphibians and Reptiles, Hall of Birds, Hall of Mammals, and, of course, the Hall of Dinosaurs!  We are in for quite an adventure and hope our museum will be open for tours as it progresses.

Staring the Dinosaurs Down….

This summer we twice visited the Virginia Living Museum to see the visiting Dinosaur exhibit. It was well worth the trip. If you are local and you haven’t been, you should put it on your must do list. I can’t say enough good things about this museum. Everything is well done. And while you’re there, get a membership. You’re gonna want to go back and two visits will pay for a membership for a family of 4.

First we got to stare down the large, life-like dinosaur models. AT first, this was overwhelming for Kalani. He only wanted to stay in the exhibit area for a short time, so he and I checked out some other stuff while dad and brother took their time. However, after we left, Kalani chatted about it claiming he wasn’t scared at all and it was he who suggested we go back. By the second visit he couldn’t get enough and now is very interested in dinosaurs! We saw the famous T-Rex and a Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Pachycephalosaurus (I just like to SAY that one!). They really were as real looking as I could imagine. The mechanical eyes moved and they seemed to look right at you; a little disconcerting when you are standing in front of the carnivores!

Check them out:

T-Rex

Deinonychus (the little ones)

Pachycephalosaurus

After we watched the dinosaurs for a while, we decided to go to the museum’s live animal show. Another excellent choice. They brought out about 5 animals to tell us about. We got to touch them and learned cool stuff like prehistoric millipedes used to be about 3 feet long! They had one from South America that was about 6 inches long. That was cool. Then I heard something that made me really greatful to be alive NOW, not then. Cockroaches also used to be 3 feet long! Can you imagine? I nurse and unhealthy aversion to the ones we have now; I think I absolutely would die of fright with those! Anyway, it has to do with oxygen availability and spherical size. Truly on the way home, I was nursing a suspicion that I was being led down the garden path with this little factoid. However, upon further research, My husband found an article to back it up. Anyway, it was a great little show, not too long, and the boys were thrilled along with mom and dad. Kalani was quite proud to have touched both a snake and an alligator.

As if it all that wasn’t enough, we decided to see what was going on in the cafe. We figured we’d be run out by price and bad choices. But, again we were pleasantly surprised. The prices, while not falling in the cheap catagory, could not be classed as a rip-off (as is the case at many of the other local museums) and as an extra bonus: the food was good. I am not yet a connoisseur of veggie burgers but in my attempt to eat better, I decided to try one. It was scrumptious. Really, I’ve got to find out where they get them. Yum, yum!

So there you have it; it was educational and fun. Even at its most crowded stage, I didn’t feel like people were breathing down my neck at every exhibit. A nice trip and we look forward to many more!

The Early Bird Gets the….

giant blocks, the trains, the hockey game, the bubbles, the fire engines…. when you arrive early at the Virginia Children’s Museum as we did last Tuesday. The boys had a blast as we literally had the place to ourselves for a good 45 minutes. Kalani doesn’t know the word, but I’m pretty sure he reached his own Nirvana. We started in the model train room and spent quite a bit of time watching them make their rounds. then we went to the Thomas room. Two tables set up and two huge boxes of extra track and many many trains. Even brothers could play happily together here!