Our Visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science (with photos)

During our recent trip to Houston, we spent a few hours at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  For years now, one of our favorite activities as a family is to visit various museums, especially in the summer.  There are plenty of good reasons for this:



  • You can actually learn something new
  • It's really hot in Houston in August, and museums are heavily air-conditioned
  • The kids like them - what else is there to say?

At any rate, we had a great time at this museum.  It had been over a year since our last visit, and they had made a few changes to the rotating exhibits. 


Here's a shot of my family right before we entered.  I had an interesting choice here - do I go with the picture where some eyes are closed, or the one that makes my children look serious, like they came from "American Gothic".  As you can see, I opted for the latter:



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Here's a picture of Brandon and Aleah in front of the dinosaur bones, looking slightly more happy to be there, although a bit more "posed", too:



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


They have a giant pendulum at the museum, and it (very) slowly makes its way around the circle, knocking down small wooden pegs along the way.  It merely swings back and forth, but the earth's rotation causes it to move the entire 360 degrees every 24 hours.  My kids are always enthralled by this, and, frankly, so am I.  We have to stay there long enough to see at least one or two pegs get knocked over.



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Here's mom explaining the pendulum to the kids (and to me, if I am being perfectly honest - she is superwoman):



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Here I am with Abby, "assisting" with the bubble experiment.  This one reminds me of the Austin Powers line: "Start the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism!"  She was enchanted with this particular display, so we spent awhile there making bubbles. 



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Aleah took this game very seriously for some reason.  It looks like she is trying to land the shuttle, or conduct micro-surgery:



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


This is the giant sundial at the entrance of the museum.  The kids always like to play there for awhile before we leave.  They have a really cool looking fountain that flows through the base of the dial itself.



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Thanks for reading about our family day!  Have a great weekend!

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