Dinosaur Adventure: Part II - Austin Nature and Science Center

After lunch, we headed over to Zilker Park to go to the Austin Nature and Science Center for the part of the adventure that the girls were most excited about . . . digging for fossils. Because it is in a park, we had to hike a bit to get to the center. Inside they had a little discovery area, so the girls played and Tom rested with Declan while I finally got my much needed potty break.

In the discovery area, there was this cave. The girls immediately went in and pretended to sleep.


I wanted to get a picture of the 3 of them in the cave smiling at me, but only Payden was paying attention to me.

Shelby and Taylor were busy looking at the signs on this fake tree.

Tom and Declan were on the side watching the girls. Well at least Tom was watching the girls; Declan was getting a much needed nap. Poor boy. Our days are generally scheduled around his naps, but today was not about him. It was about the girls. Fortunately he is good about making up his missed sleep with later naps, and really did alright with the sleep he did get.

Since the discovery area was REALLY little, after a few minutes, we were ready to head out to the Dinosaur Pit so the girls could dig for fossils. It was a bit of a walk, and Taylor was sooooooo ready to be there.

Finally after walking around a little pond and creek, we made it . . . the entrance to the Dinosaur Pit. Taylor rushed over to the entrance as soon as she saw it . . . she was ready to dig for fossils.

On the enormous walk to the Dinosaur Pit, I had to explain to Shelby that they wouldn't actually be digging for REAL fossils. She was a bit disappointed.

The girls immediately grabbed shovels and dug in. I felt bad for the people around us. Taylor and Payden haven't really played in sand pits much, so they were throwing and tossing and flinging sand EVERYWHERE. This little family ended up moving to another area because I think they were tired of having sand thrown on them. I tried.

Now Taylor was here, there, and everywhere. She'd join us, but then go off on her own, and kept doing that the entire time we were here.

Now Payden initially dug for fossils, but eventually got tired of that and would try doing other things.

Here's Taylor off on her own digging a hole. She wasn't looking for fossils; she just wanted to dig a hole.

At this point, Payden was done with using the tools and was just playing in the sand with her hands.

She did trying digging up a fossil for a little bit.

Shelby, true to her nature, sat down by a fossil and tried to dig it up completely and clean off all the sand. She was our most focused fossil hunter.

I sat down to dig with her and she informed me that I could also bury my feet in the sand and that it felt good. Oh what a change. When she was a toddler, she HATED HATED HATED the feel of sand on her feet. She would flip out with the smallest amount of sand. How funny!

At this time Payden got the grand idea to bury one of the digging tools in the sand.

She was so excited when she finished and excitedly pointed out her work to me.

Taylor had found this little family at one of the other areas and decided to talk to them. She talked and she talked and she talked and she talked . . . and then she talked some more. She talked about dinosaurs, her family. I wasn't there for all of the conversation, but she just kept on talking to them. She kept telling them that the fossil over by them was a Baryonyx. It was actually a Mosasaur, but hey the fact that she even knows there's such a thing as a Baryonyx is impressive to me. It was funny because the lady asked if she was learning about dinosaurs at school. She figured there had to be something. No, ma'am, she's learned all of this because she wants to, because she LOVES learning about dinosaurs.

Taylor finally came back again to dig with Shelby. It was cute watching them dig together.

I wanted to get some cute close-ups of the girls digging. I was able to get one of Payden.

Here Payden decided to swim through the sand. Like I said, she really explored all she could do with the sand.

The whole time we were there I worked with Taylor on placing her sand somewhere instead of just flinging it through the air. Well, she did another crazy fling and this time she threw it all over herself. I laughed at that. She wasn't too excited about having sand all over her. Maybe that'll help her to remember to be careful about flinging sand . . . maybe.

For some reason, Payden climbed up over on this post and started pouting.

I went to see what was wrong, but unfortunately could not understand her. She jabbered on about something, but I was clueless. She definitely didn't appreciate me taking pictures of her. It was too funny. She's so cute when she pouts. The weird thing is no one was around her when she decided to go over here and pout, so I was really clueless about what was bothering her.

I loved this picture of Shelby digging in. She's got her tongue out in deep concentration.

I finally got a good close-up of Shelby. Unfortunately, Taylor didn't stay still long enough or stay close enough for me to get one of her. I tried, but she was too everywhere.

Declan had been chilling over with Tom in the sitting area. Tom brought him close to me, and I caught him chewing on his blanket. He loves chewing on material, which gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

Shelby really had a good time digging up the fossils. Here she is working on a second fossil.

I decided Declan might enjoy the sand, so I got him out of his stroller for some time in the sand. He loved it. He'd reach over and just flip his hand through the sand - it kind of looked like he was waving in the sand.

I kept expecting him to try and eat it, but he didn't. I was really surprised. He really had a good time.

Finally at the end, the three girls sat down to work on the same fossil together. Love it!!

Of course, the moment Payden saw Declan playing in the sand, she had to come over and play with him. Then just as we were about to leave, Payden scoops up a handful of sand, and dumps it on Declan's head. It ended up inside all of his clothes . . . including his diaper.

Near the Dinosaur Pit, they had some cages with some animals in them, so we went to look. This is a wood duck. I love his coloring.

These raccoons like so freaky. They were sound asleep even though they looked more like they were dead.

After looking at the animals, we decided we were ready to go to our last stop on our dinosaur adventure - Hartman Prehistoric Garden. The garden was on the other side of Zilker Park, which is really, really huge. By the time we made it out of the Austin Nature and Science Center area, we realized we were too pooped to go to the garden, especially because all we would be doing is walking around. Since we'd had plenty of fun, we decided to call it quits. As we were going to our car, we noticed these cool looking bird homes on the underneath of the freeway that went over the parking lot.

Not long after we got in the car, Payden conked out. It had been a fun day, and she'd missed her nap, so I wasn't too surprised. Unfortunately it was about 4 in the afternoon, and I was afraid she wouldn't be able to go to bed at a decent time.

Usually the moment we get in the car for a long ride, the girls are asking to start their movie. This time, they sat looking at their dinosaur books and talking. In fact, they never asked to watch their movie. I wanted them to keep quiet so that Declan would stay asleep, so I finally told them to start their movie.

It worked out nicely because not long after the movie started, Payden stirred a little. I asked her if she wanted to watch, and she decided to wake up to watch the movie. She ended up with just a little power nap, which was perfect.

Declan got in a fairly good nap, too. Cute boy!!

By the time we got home, it was almost bedtime. With all we'd done, the kids were ready for bed. What a great day we had!!! We really enjoyed our dinosaur adventure.

Dinosaur Adventure: Part I - Texas Memorial Museum

Well we have been living and breathing dinosaurs lately. We've watched Dinosaur the movie, the girls watch Dinosaur King every Saturday morning, they are constantly looking through their dinosaur books, and they are always playing dinosaurs, whether it be battling dinosaurs or whatever else gets in their mind. One afternoon I decided to Google dinosaur attractions to see if we could go to any in May when we move from Texas and while we wait for Tom to get liscensed. I found a website that listed the top ten dinosaur attractions and 2 of them were in Austin, TX and not only were they close, but they were also FREE. Honestly, I felt like I scored one of the best deals ever. Well we were definitely not going to wait for May to do that, so when Tom came home, I told him about the dinosaur places and we decided to go to them on Saturday. The girls were SOOOOOOOO excited.

Saturday rolled around and once we got everyone ready, we hopped into the car and set off on our dinosaur adventure. We should have gone ahead and bought Dinosaur the movie . . . you'd have thought we'd done that by now . . . and have the girls watch it on the way to Austin. It would have been perfect, but I did not have that foresight. Instead they had to settle for 101 Dalmatians.


The first stop on our dinosaur adventure was the Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas - Austin. With it being Saturday, we were able to park close by in some of the campus parking spots without being ticketed or paying . . . perfect! As we walked towards the museum, Tom spotted this door and had to take a picture. The sign on the door reads, "Environmental Health and Safety." Looking at the door, they might need to work on that.

While Shelby and Taylor got their pictures taken, the babies waited patiently in their strollers. I still am amazed at how big Declan looks next to Payden. She is honestly going to be passed up in size very quickly. Oh, and can you tell what color our family likes? Orange.

As we got nearer to the museum, we crossed over this little creek. The roots on the tree looked really cool. It was a pretty peaceful scene.

I'm not exactly sure why they had these mustangs there, but we stopped to take a picture anyways. Up those steps and a billion more we could see the back of the museum (although we didn't know that at the time).

We decided to go to the nearby parking garage to see if we could find directions to the museum and we were fortunate that there were signs. After an elevator ride and a short walk later, we saw these replicas of dinosaur vertebrae and I knew we had found the museum. Of course the girls were more than happy to take a seat for a picture.

Right next to this area, we found the Glen Rose Dinosaur Tracks in a covered building with windows to look through.

You can see 2 kinds of footprints. The huge ones are from a sauropod, like Diplodocus or Brachiasaurus. The ones with the nasty looking claws are from a theropod, like Tyrannosaurus Rex or some other two-legged meat eater. Apparently scientists think the 2 animals were fighting. It was kind of odd thinking that dinosaurs had actually stepped on that ground. We talk about dinosaurs, but seeing those prints made them more real. Unfortunately, it was hard to get a good shot because the prints were enclosed in a building, but we tried.

We rounded the corner and finally saw the entrance to the museum. Now for this picture Tom told Shelby and Taylor where to stand; I love how Payden on her own went and pointed to the teeth of the saber-tooth cat. Is she a dentist's daughter or what?

We entered the building on the 2nd floor in the Great Hall and immediately got to see our first dinosaur fossil - a pterosaur called Quetzocoatlus.

There were tons of interesting things in this hall that we had a good time looking at . . . fossils, gems, minerals, bugs, rocks, and so forth. This limestone slab contains fossils of brittle stars and eocrinoids.

The gems and minerals were fun to look at - so beautiful, so colorful, and so sparkly!!

This is the humerous of a Quetzocoatlus.

This amethyst geode was HUGE. They had the lighting just right so that it sparkled. Gorgeous!

There were quite a few displays of bugs. Somehow they are amazing and creepy all in one. The butterflies I'm fine with; it's the creepy, crawly ones that give me the heebie-jeebies.

More cool gems to look at.

This was another amazing, yet creepy display - the colors on these beetles and the variety were just incredible. I know there are millions of bugs, but it was still amazing to see so many varying kinds of just beetles.

After thoroughly checking out the Great Hall, we decided to head down to the Hall of Geology and Paleontology on the first floor - the reason we'd come. While I nursed Declan, the girls and Tom started exploring. There was a little side hall that they looked at first which contained displays on the earliest life and meteorites.

Then they moved on to the bigger hall that conatined prehistoric mammals, reptiles, amphibians, sea creatures, and of course . . . dinosaurs!! These mammoth skulls are just ENORMOUS!!! Look at them in comparison to Shelby.

Here were some of the prehistoric amphibians. I think Shelby's trying to strike a pose here . . . oh what have we created!!

Finally we got to the important stuff . . . the dinosaurs. There were so many that the girls knew - Diplodocus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Parasaurolophus, Chasmosaurus, Centrosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus are just a few that I remember.

Next to the dinosaur display was the display of prehistoric marine life with this huge fossil of a mosasaur.

Tom had the camera and this is the only dinosaur fossil close-up he took - the head of Pachycephalosaurus. I wish I had known because I would have liked to take one of each of the dinosaurs that the girls were familiar with. Oh well.

He did get a shot of them next to the Diplodocus femur. What an enormous animal is must have been!!

There was another little family there, and Payden found herself a little friend. The two of them ran around and climbed like they were the best of friends.

The girls had so much fun looking at all of the fossils.

That is one huge turtle.

That fish looked pretty awesome although his face looks awfully mean.

Just off of the exhibit hall was the Paleo lab. The sign said it was closed, but there happened to be a senior paleontology student there, so we stopped and talked with him for a bit. Apparently he's going to Seattle to work on a graduate degree in political science when he finishes. What a small world! Not only are we moving to that area, but my brother will be starting grad school for political science next year as well. There was a moment where Payden went up to the counter, looked at the fossils, and preceded to tell him . . . the paleontology student . . . what they were. She cracks us up. She thinks she knows it all. She kept him telling him, "This dinosaurs." He would say something else, and she'd reply, "No, this dinosaurs." It reminded me of the time she was telling Declan about the different colors of his fish . . . she doesn't know her colors because she won't listen to me. She knows names of the colors, but assigns those names to whatever color SHE wants. So we sat and watched her teach Declan all about colors even though she doesn't know her colors. I guess we just need to realize that she knows it all and we don't. :) Funny, funny, funny.

Next we headed up to the Hall of Biodiversity. They had a lot of displays about HIV and AIDS. Apparently, this is what the AIDS virus looks like. Pretty cool!

There were a lot of interactive displays in this hall that we all enjoyed. Here I'm looking at pond scum or something like that.

Here's a giant-sized pond scum.

The girls kept running to each display to push buttons, flip pages, or do whatever thing was there. They really enjoyed the interaction.

Even Declan found one that he enjoyed. He spun that globe over and over. He wasn't really doing it on purpose, but would put his hands on top like this and then when he'd put his weight on his hands he would accidentally spin the globe, knocking his hands off. He was too cute!

Finally we went down to the last floor that we needed to explore - the Hall of Texas Wildlife. I'll have to say that I'm glad I have not seen most of this wildlife up close and personal. It was definitely better seeing it stuffed and behind glass!!

In this display was one thing I have seen . . . an opossum. We had one sleeping under our grill one morning. I found him when I was cleaning up the back patio. I moved the grill and heard the thud of something hitting the ground. I turned and saw a nasty tail sticking out from under our grill cover. I about died. Taylor was out there with me. I grabbed her and ran inside. I ended up paying someone to remove it, but it was money well spent because I was freaked out for the rest of the day. I'm getting chills now just remembering.

Apparently, porcupines have a light phase. It looks so nice and fluffly here.

Much more menacing here.

Here was the section on the fishes of Texas.

This was the section of Texas night life.

Finally we found some more bugs.

I can't BELIEVE the number of bugs in this display.

Apparently, Payden went over to Tom and tried to pull him over to this display so that he would take a picture of her. Nice choice of display for a picture . . . the one with a mountain lion mauling a deer.

Here was the section on birds. These were the ocean birds; I think about 5 of these were some type of gull.

Fortunately the museum was fairly small, so we were able to explore every nook and cranny. We really had a good time. I really love that our girls enjoy museums so much because we LOVE them. I can only imagine what'll be like if we ever make it to the Smithsonian. We would be in heaven and lost there forever. :)

After we finished at the museum, we headed back to the car for the next part in our dinosaur adventure when we realized it was time to take a lunch break. We headed to our favorite restaurant - Red Robin. Even here we lucked out because they were having a deal where kids eat free!!! We saw the signs, but couldn't believe it . . . until we got the bill. Awesome!! Apparently only 2 kids could eat free, but hey we'll take what we can get. We ended up paying only about $6 more than if we'd gone out to a fast food restaurant.

After stuffing ourselves with delicious food and taking potty breaks and changing diapers (except Mom), we were finally ready to head on to Part II of our adventure.