Spring Break part 2, Arizona museum of Natural History. Also known as the "gold panning museum!"

One of the things I did with the kids over Spring Break was to take them to the Museum of Natural History (used to be known as the Southwest Museum). We had a wonderful time and all the kids had different favorite exhibits, which made my heart sing. I used to love this same museum when I was a child and I can still remember going there and panning for gold and seeing the dinosaur bones. They have sure added a lot since then.

                               Here are my stars among the stars!!!

                                             
 Here they are with a "real" meteor. They loved all the minerals and rocks, etc. Especially because daddy works with copper daily and his company has donated some copper and other samples to this museum.

 They have added a new "build your own dinosaur" exhibit. Sarah and Will were in heaven!

Will was so excited to make a dinosaur that had two heads instead of one! One for each side!

 I used to be so intriqued by this old jail cell they have there and I told Lund to go and there and pretend he was in "time out"! He said it wouldn't be very fun to be there for any length of time. I agree!!! So stay out of trouble with the law buddy!!

 I thought this was a hoot! We have this same hat at home from Morgan's work. They sure like his company there. They had a lot of mining stuff there. That is a world we are familiar with.

 Oh yes! Then we were on to my favorite part when I was a kid.... panning for gold!!!!

  They really got into it and I was sooo excited for them. They were finding tiny specks of gold rocks and they were getting pretty stoked about it and so I decided to have some fun with him. I went to the gift shop and spent 6.00 buying two bags of huge gold rocks. And then I hid them in the water while the kids weren't looking. But, sadly Cassidy caught on to what I was doing, so I told her that she was old enough to keep a secret. And it sure was fun!!

                Will was really getting into it, which meant that he was getting pretty wet too!!

 And then they started panning out the big rocks..... boy, were they excited!!!!

 
 Man, it was totally worth the 6.00!!! Other moms even starting grabbing their kids and bringing them over to where my kids were panning for gold since they seemed to be doing so good for some reason!!! Moms were getting frantic about it...... awesome!! Great entertainment!!

And you gotta love those old bones!!!! We bought a season pass because it was about the same price as going one time, so we are going to visit the museum often this summer!!