Up and out

We made it out the door today, and amazingly arrived early!  We met up with another couple of families at Tring Natural History Museum.  We haven't been there for ages, and it's a great place to go for an hour or two.

It's a collection of stuffed animals and birds from around the world, including some extinct species like the dodo and the elephant bird.  The collection was originally owned by one of the Rothschilds.

The kids, as always, seemed overwhelmed and excited by the size of the rooms and the sheer number of creatures to look at. 

Each time we go, they get something different from the visit.  Some of the highlights were the bugs with beautiful wings, the baby tigers and bears, the penguins, and the sunstar (a sort of star fish).

Freddie and Betsy surprised me by identifying an anaconda (Betsy) and a python (Freddie).  It reminded me of the time we came when Freddie was 4.  He pointed out the capybara.  I had never heard of a capybara!

Here is the capybara in question....

The kids found some interesting things in the museum shop.  Meg got a red eyed tree frog.  Freddie found some very cool 'fly vision' glasses, though they are a bit small for him.  I'll look out for some bigger ones.

He was delighted when I spotted some obsidian.  I hadn't heard of obsidian before Freddie started playing minecraft.  It's volcanic glass.  He bought two pieces, one for him and one for Jarvis.

Betsy got a piece of rose quartz.

This afternoon,  I got out some fabric, feather, yarn and buttons, and Betsy and Meg made some fabulous peg dolls.

And, inspired by a tweet from Cathy at Nurture Store this morning, we made a sparkly candle holder.  It's not dry yet, but here it is just after we'd glued it.

Freddie continued minecrafting.  I'd like to work out how to get screen shots from the laptop over to my netbook, so I can add them blog posts.

A lovely busy day!