Denver Trip - Museum of Nature and Science - Pirates, Mummies, Animals, Sculptures

The next day we went to The Museum of Nature and Science. We brought food and planned on staying all day. We were glad we did. It was full of great exhibits that kept the kids and adults interested all day.

ANIMALS- These were some of my favorite exhibits. I loved how they created lifelike scenes. I would start out thinking that there were only one or two animals in the scene. Then, as I looked closer and spent more time looking around carefully, more and more animals would 'appear.'







REAL PIRATES- This was the voted favorite exhibit. It is a traveling exhibit and just happened to be in Denver while we were there. We paid extra to go in and it was worth every penny. Pictures weren't allowed inside the exhibit (It was really hard for me to restrain myself!). We got to touch some of the actual treasure that was recovered from off the bottom of the ocean.

The story goes like this (as far as I can remember). There was a young man named Sam Bellamy who was in love with a beautiful girl. She returned his love and they wanted to be married. Her father wouldn't allow his daughter to marry a poor man, so Sam was compelled to seek a fortune. He decided to do it the fastest way possible at that time...through piracy. He was a very successful pirate and was on his way home in a stolen ship called the Whydah with treasure stolen from over 50 different ships (if I remember correctly). There was a terrible storm and within days of home the ship went down. Captain Bellamy died along with most of the crew. We loved this exhibit!





GEM SCULPTURES- These were miniature sculptures made out of precious gems. They all depicted life in Russia.




Jackson actually did this on his mission. It was some type of bath house where everyone went. Among other things, you went into a steamy room, laid naked on a wooden table and someone slapped your entire back side with sticks. It was supposed to make your pores open up or something. He said that everyone got really hot in the steam room and then went outside and jumped into the snow before running back inside again.




MUMMIES- We love learning about mummies. This one interesting because when it was found, there was the body of a rich woman inside the casket of a poor man. Why?...they don't know exactly.






MORE ANIMALS

Denver Trip - Casa Bonita

We went on a family trip to Denver with Aunt Julia, Uncle Chris, Ethan, Aiden, Aunt Amber, Uncle Judd, Clarissa, Newell, Brynne, and Juliette. We had a great time and made fun memories. My shutter finger goes on overdrive when we go on vacation. I took hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I narrowed them down considerably, but there are still LOTS! There will be about five different Denver posts and we were only there for two days:)

We met everyone at Casa Bonita for dinner on Thursday evening. The food was quite gross. The kids absolutely LOVED the entertainment...divers, puppet shows, dark scary cave tunnels, face drawing, mini plays...they loved it!





We splurged and had the kid's faces drawn cartoon style.

They couldn't resist touching the water in the fountain in front while we were waiting for everyone to arrive.

Suzuki Camp

Back in June, Jackson went to Suzuki camp to become certified to teach Books 2 and 3. He came back full of ideas, feeling confident and prepared to take his students through those books.

Thomas got to go as a student of violin. Grandma Chelle generously and happily went with him as his chaperone. She went with him to classes, took notes, and practiced with him in the evenings. She sincerely enjoyed it. Thomas doesn't realize how lucky he is to have had an entire week by himself with his grandma and his dad.

Thomas came back from camp completely in love with the violin. Now, after an hour of practicing, I say that we are finished and he says, "Really? That's all?" and then he plays fiddle tunes he learned at camp for a while longer.



One of the nights the kids and I were there we went swimming in the hotel pool.

Staying with the Smiths

Thomas and Jackson went to a Suzuki camp back in June (pictures to come soon). I took the other three kids to Salt Lake for a few days so we could see one of Thomas's performances. We stayed with my dear friend from college, Elisa, and her sweet family. My kids loved her kids. I loved visiting in the small moments between the chaos of having 7 small children running around. Thank you E! My kids keep begging me to take them back to your house :)



The first evening we were there, Elisa invited a couple other college friends (Jessie and April) over for a bbq dinner.