LA fun!

Thursday and Friday of last week were not technical school days for Connor and I...most of the teachers attended a Montessori conference in Philadelphia.  I chose not to go.  I ended up working Thursday, but then Friday we all had some fun.  Friday Peter had the day off of work and it was also his birthday so we took a little trip to LA to go to some awesome museums.  We took my dad with us and we all had a blast!  Our first stop was La Brea Tar Pits (Page Museum).  This was a short visit, but still pretty cool.  There were a TON of children on field trips there, so it was very crowded!  My favorite parts were seeing the tar just coming up out of the ground and a lake area that was bubbling.  There were several dig sites too, but we didn't go and see them.  It was really hot outside and we had more museums that we wanted to see, so we moved on.

Here's a panorama of the tar in the lake (above)

Entrance to the museum (below)

This is a Columbian Mammoth

These are Dire Wolves....On the opposite wall of this were over 200 skulls of dire wolves found in the tar pits.

Throughout the outside park like area were these yellow cones marking several tar pits.  Larger pits were surrounded by fencing.

From there we went to the California Science Center.  We went to see the Endeavor and then played with all the cool things in the museum.  Connor liked the area where we played with ping pong balls.

 Connor being a goof in front of the replica of the Mars Rover

 Astronaut suit

 above and below...potty for astronauts...this had a video that was very interesting to watch.

 Daddy and Chloe admire the underside of the Endeavor

Here's the Endeavor...pretty cool to see up close.  We watched a short video of what an intricate process it was to tow it to the science center.  It was pretty neat.  I remember watching it on TV a couple years ago.

Here's a panorama view of the Endeavor

 The museum also had a fish tank tunnel and this huge floor to ceiling tank.  The diver on the inside was feeding the sharks.

 They also had a tidepool area where the kids could touch the starfish, sea cucumber and anemones.

 Chloe had fun splashing in the water

 Grandpa and Chloe are checking out one of the tanks

 Chloe made a new friend

 These were hanging from the ceiling above the escalators

 Chloe and Grandpa played with gears

Connor put up giant foam pieces to build the walls of this house

This area was a lot of fun.  We could've spent hours here, but we had one more museum on our list to visit, so moved along...and went next door to the Natural History Museum.  They had two exhibits that Peter really wanted to see: the dinosaurs and the gem and minerals.

 Above Connor is a T Rex that looks like it's going to eat my kiddo...so Connor is afraid-though it looks a lot like his normal goofy pose too.

 Daddy's afraid too

 Here are some more critters

I didn't take pictures of any of the gems-mostly because there was an armed guard standing outside and photography just sounded a bit odd at that point.  We even went into a vault where they kept more gems...that was pretty cool too.

Overall we had a great time in LA and it was very cheap too.  We paid one adult, one child and one senior ticket to the dinosaur museum and tar pits together was $24.  Chloe was free, and CA teachers are free-I just showed a paycheck and my ID and I got in free.  The Science Museum was also free, though to see the Endeavor was $2 per person.  It was a great way to spend a day off of work and a great birthday for Peter.