Butterflies, Science and Fish

Well, our butterflies all emerged from their little chrysalis homes, and 3 of them successfully flew away. One of the butterflies had what looked like 2 proboscises (straw like mouth thingy) and they were kinda freaky, each going its own way and neither would curl up properly like the rest of the butterflies. Another one got injured in the release process. Neither of them could fly, so I just placed them up in a tree and let nature take it's course. Bummer. The other 3 flew off into the tree tops and the kids were happy with the experience. What a wondrous thing to witness. :)

We had to release them last week because we were going on vacation! Yay! I love vacation! We went to Oklahoma City's Science Museum on Saturday and then to the Aquarium in Tulsa (er Jenks to be precise) on Sunday. We all had a great time. I can't wait for our next trip! Not sure where we will go, but I hope we go somewhere before too long. I really enjoyed doing things as a family.
The Science Museum was lots of fun, but if you happen to visit, skip the cartoony Imax movie about bugs in space... it was just awful. I also could have skipped the Science Live show we went to and been no worse for wear, though it wasn't bad, it was LOUD, and Jace had to turn his hearing aids off in order to tolerate it, which means he didn't learn anything, anyway. Rachel liked it, though.

The aquarium was neat, but short. It only takes about an hour to see everything and take 350 pictures (trust me). The special lighting made it difficult to get good snap shots with my camera, so I deleted about a hundred of the ones I took. Yay for huge memory cards and extra batteries!

See huge alligator gar to the left, opening it's mouth right by Jace's head, lol.

One of the highlights of the trip for the kids was running through the dancing fountain at the River Walk next to the aquarium. They got thoroughly wet and had a blast. Only problem was that this caused an unforeseen shortage of clothing for the kids, which got a little sticky when we had a bladder control issue on the ride home from Tulsa. We managed, though, and as I said before, the kids totally loved it, so it was worth the trouble. Note to self: bring lots of pants next time.

Tulsa is really pretty. At least the east side where we stayed is really pretty this time of year. Big, expensive houses in hilly, established neighborhoods with big trees and manicured lawns. Wonder what that is like... *sigh* It was very pretty. Wichita is UGLY. Ughly. Ughhhhly. It's flat and there are only trees near water, which is muddy, polluted and scarce, except when it rains buckets and everything floods. THEN the water is everywhere. It's in your dining room in the carpet because a pipe on the roof came loose from it's seal. It's in your basement because the ground is saturated. It's blocking streets, creeping up hills and ominously looming just outside of houses. I digress. Tulsa is pretty, but driving in Tusla is awful.

One thing I was thankful for when we got back to Wichita was the street signs. In Wichita you get advance notice of upcoming exits. Usually you get 3 signs warning of a junction or even just a regular off-ramp onto a city street. In Tulsa you get 1 sign and it's about 300 feet before the exit. We had to turn around 3 or 4 times just getting across Tulsa because we missed our exits! Ugh. Never again. I told Tim we should get ourselves a GPS for Christmas.