Plan C: Natural History Museum

Plan A: To leave Sunday and spend 3-4 days with my brother and his family and celebrate a slightly early Thanksgiving (and to pick-up some hand-me-downs and "hand-me-backs" that they have for TieBreaker). But, when we realized that our available days did not coincide with their days off of work and school, it made no sense to travel that far and not spend very much time with them.

Plan B: A surprise two-day getaway to SeaWorld and LegoLand. The plan was to wake the kids up early Sunday with an already packed car and head out. John and I were so excited to see surprised faces and hear squeals of excitement from Preston. But, Mother Nature had 14 straight hours of wind and rain in store and, for once, the forecast was spot on. Thankfully the kids knew nothing and we were the only two disappointed. We will definitely be attempting this surprise again before TieBreaker is born. (We better get planning!)

So...

Plan C: A rainy day trip to the Natural History Museum - Los Angeles County.
We had a great time!

Preston was super excited and insisted on pushing Gracie for about the first 30 minutes. He oohed and ahhed at all the dinosaur exhibits and loved identifying the ones he could (which was a lot)!

We took in one of the museum's shows, Dinosaur Encounters.

It features juvenile-sized dinosaur puppets (a T-Rex and a Triceratops) that are fully articulated and have, what paleontologists presume to be, accurate sounds. Even though we knew the dinosaur was a puppet, you get caught up in how cool and real the movement is in the upper part of the body.

Preston loved this, though was definitely a bit nervous when the T-Rex
lunged at the audience and looked prepared to chomp on the volunteer's arm. He raised his hand to answer questions (even though everyone was shouting!) and was right every time! (He didn't understand why everyone else wasn't raising their hands and waiting to be called on! So sweet!)

Click here for some cool video footage... we highly recommend these shows!

We checked out the mammal exhibits, the birds and the rain forest.

Both kids thoroughly enjoyed the "lab" where everything was hands on.

Love this... Preston is signing to Gracie all the animals that are displayed.

This was, by far, Gracie's favorite exhibit.
She wheeled herself into the ideal position to get a good look at everything and really did not want to budge when it was time to move on.

Time to leave... but we'll be back... soon, I imagine, since Preston already asked if we could go again next weekend!