Wednesday, Olivia and I went to The Butterfly Pavilion with Lindsay (my neighbor with the daycare!), her kids, and some daycare kiddos. The Butterfly Pavilion is about 40 minutes north of our house. It has lots of bugs and creepy crawlies, but the main attraction is a tropical conservatory with 1200 butterflies from rain forests around the world. Needless to say, there were butterflies flying EVERYWHERE! We started in the insect room. Olivia was as grossed out by the cockroaches as I was:
The main attraction in this room is Rosey. Rosey is a tarantula. If you "hold" the tarantula, you get a sticker proclaiming your braveness. Have you met my sticker loving daughter? As soon as she saw those stickers, she made a beeline for the spider. Unfortunately, you have to be at least 3 years old to hold Rosey. Even more unfortunately, if you're under 3, Mommy can hold the spider for you. Luckily, I can handle spiders (in a controlled environment). A snake would be a different story! I found it quite funny that she wasn't afraid of it!
We moved through a few more exhibits, then hit the conservatory. It's kept really humid and we were all sweating within 2 minutes. (I will remember this place next winter, when it's snowing for the umpteenth time!)
The butterflies were amazing:
The staff are mostly volunteers with loads of information. The main rule is (obviously), don't touch the butterflies. We were informed that butterflies landing on us is OK, preferably on our clothes, to avoid the oil in our skin. Now, you can't walk 2 steps without butterflies swarming around you, yet we were expected to keep a 2 year old and an almost 2 year old from touching? Tough request! They did pretty well at first. Then, we rounded a corner to find Lindsay's little boy shaking one by the wing. I thought one of the volunteers was going to pass out. We made a hasty retreat to a play area!
Note the sticker:
Lots of fun! The rec center pools opened Friday, so we went down for an hour or two. She wasn't really into it. She liked the splash area pretty well:
But, was much more interested in the snacks I brought:
Saturday and Sunday was mainly spent working on the deck, but we headed to a nearby park with fountains today. I thought Olivia would really like it and she squealed when she saw it- "wader!" (water). However, I think it was a little intimidating for her:
That was as close as she got before running back to Daddy:
We decided to head to the pool instead. Luckily, she did much better today. She even let us take her in the "deep" end (4 feet). We usually stay in the kiddie area. It's a zero depth entry, so it's perfect for little ones. She gets cold pretty easily (probably because of the lack of fat on her body!), so even though it was warm today (around 80), she was really cold when she got out of the pool:
She was once again really into the snacks I brought:
I guess I'll take her to the pool on days she's not eating well! Did you notice her hair was in a ponytail today? She looks so much older!
One video to share. Michael thought it would be really funny to teach her "Becky." I didn't think she would pick it up, but lo and behold:
So, now Mommy's working on some new words: "Michael Andrew." =)
No comments:
Post a Comment