Day @ The Museum

Last night we took in dinner and a stroll at the Grove and Farmers Market. The light was good and I was compelled to take these photos of our night on the town. The boys love watching the fountain shows and taking rides on the tram. It's a little like Disneyland only much smaller and a whole lot less crowded.


We ate at the Gumbo Pot and were happy to see that Dupars has finally finished their remodel. This is where I had my first taste of real cherry pie and it was sublime! I still think about it every time I pass by or hear the name Dupars.


Today I decided that I am going to squeeze our membership to the Natural History Museum to its very limit. I would take the boys out for a day trip by myself. Sometimes I feel like a mental patient slowly making my way back to the road of sanity. Am I ready to take this next step? Well... I am happy to report that our little excursion has left us none the worse for wear. We came home without a scratch, but just barely.


Our outing started just before noon. Once we got to the museum we wandered around, slowly making our way down to the lower level where the creepy crawlies are kept. We took everything in, all the while happily clicking away on our cameras. To our surprise we bumped into a fellow Gymboree kid, a little boy named David and his grandad. What followed was about 10 minutes of Rhys and David scurrying around the room running from aquarium to aquarium screeching and pointing at the different bugs, animals and snakes behind each glass. It was sweet but a little hard on the ears.


Afterwards we went to get a bite to eat at the cafe. We sat down and had a pretty peaceful meal, until a group of youngsters sat down at table next to us. They were engaged in a little play which consisted of slapping each others hands on top of the table. It was at this point Rhys decides that he needed to reprimand them with 'hey no fighting!' in a really vociferous tone. I had to explain to the mom that he was just imitating what we usually tell him. Luckily we were pretty much finished with our lunch by then!


Everything was going pretty smoothly, a few bumps here and there, usually our main problem was with Rhys running around ahead of us, but not anything too out of control. That is until we left the main building on our way to the Butterfly Pavilion.


It was at this point that Rhys got disoriented and LOST. There's a maze of a ramp located near the entrance that allows for strollers and wheelchairs to easily circumvent the long and awkward flight of stairs leading to the museum. This is where Rhys had been running up and down. One minute I see him running to and fro on the ramp and the next 'poof' he's disappeared! At first I thought he was further down the ramp, so Henry and I ran over to get him. But he was no where in sight! I walked back up the stairs and onto the main floor thinking maybe he went back inside to see the dinosaurs again.


Wouldn't you know it he was walking around the roped off dinosaur bones and to my appeasement looking rather agitated. (The picture posted above was taken earlier in the day). A large family headed by both mom and dad came up to me and were relieved to see that he found me. They said that he was really scared and so they were keeping an eye on him. The mom told me every time she tried to approach him to help he would back away from her truly scared. Unbelievably this happened in a matter of 10 minutes! He was soo glad to see me that he didn't give me much grief for the rest of the outing.


Henry has caught the photobug and took a bunch of pictures today.


I'm really anxious about school starting up for the boys next week. Henry is pretty much set, I just have to get some last minute supplies and drop off the new emergency contact card by the end of the week. Rhys is another matter altogether! Rhys is entering Pre-K and other than the month stint over the summer it's the start of his first real year of school! We are all very excited.