Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point

Over the past few days some of Tom's family came into town for a Orme get-together. The first major thing we planned on doing was to go to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. During August, the Museum does $2 Tuesdays, which is an awesome price since their rates are normally high. Tom, the kids, and I made it out the door before everyone else and headed over. The girls were sooooooo excited. This is supposed to be one of the biggest dinosaur museums in the country, and they were ready to see some dinosaurs.

We got there about an hour after it opened and the line was long, but it got even longer as the day wore on. We ended up seeing Adam, Carlee, and Jack on their way out of the museum; they had decided to enjoy the awesome price as well.

Finally after a long wait, we headed in. It took awhile before we got to the dinosaurs. We went through a room set up like a dinosaur dig, another room that made you feel like you were walking through outer space, and a few other rooms.

This ancient fish, although not a dinosaur, was still pretty cool, and the girls enjoyed seeing the shells.

Finally a dinosaur, and one they knew . . . dimetrodon.


Herrerasaurus


We entered a huge room that had dinosaurs set up on top of this cave. Of course the girls had to go crawl through the cave.

Afterwards we took a look at the little dinosaurs on top . . . othnielia.

Declan has definitely learned what to do in front of a camera. I went to get a shot of him chillin' on top of Tom's shoulders, and he immediately smiled for me.

An ancient crocodile named goniopholis . . . I think.

We rounded the corner and entered this huge room with 2 ginormous sauropods.

There were other dinosaurs on display around the sauropods, which we also checked out. This one is gargoyleosaurus.

Finally we got to check out one of the big sauropods . . . Supersaurus, who was found by someone from BYU.

One of our favorites . . . stegosaurus.

Utahraptor.

You can see from this picture how interested they were in everything at the museum. We'd talk about each display, and they just ate it all up. Declan especially loved this petrified wood.

It's hard to see, but these are compsognathus. This was one of the first dinosaurs that Taylor learned, and I still love hearing her say it.

This was the other sauropod in the room next to the Supersaurus . . . Brachiosaurus.

Edmontonia

Like I said, the girls were just intrigued with it all.

Here's another view of Brachiosaurus.

Anhanguera . . . we hadn't heard of this one, but you don't really hear of too many of the flying dinosaurs.

This is another one we like . . . pachycephalosaurus.

This is one of the many dinosaurs with a head frill . . . chasmosaurus.

They were soooooo excited when we saw this . . . 2 T-Rexes.

The girls watch a show called Dinosaur Train about a Pteranodon family, so they loved seeing one.

Protoceratops.

We finally got down to see the T-Rexes up close.

Struthiomimus . . . Taylor loves saying this one. You can tell the girl's a dinosaur lover by all the obscure dinosaurs she knows . . . her sisters love dinosaurs, too, but not quite as passionately as Taylor.

Finally their favorite . . . triceratops. It's funny how triceratops, the favorite of TONS of kids, is still their favorite even after all the other cool ones they know about.

We finally finished with the dinosaurs. The marine animals weren't quite as interesting since the girls don't know as much about them, but it was still fun to see . . . especially this ginormous turtle.

And this fish just looks wrong!

We did meet up with the rest of Tom's family, but we were in a hurry to get home to give naps so we left them behind to go ahead. The last room of the museum is a sand pit for the kids to go digging for fossils. They were mad at us for not letting them play in the sand, but it was PACKED . . . we're talking major traffic jam . . . and Payden and Declan needed naps.

We had a blast! The girls LOVED every bit and can't wait to go back! I love that they are passionate about dinosaurs. I love seeing their excitement! I love that they LOVE going to museums and seeing history! I can't wait to go back!