prehistoric black friday: chapter one

Friday T had the day off (it was a surprise!) and we wanted to go do something to take advantage of this. We wanted it to be as close to free as possible so we started looking at museums on line. The boys really want to go to a dinosaur place that is a couple of hours away (the entry fees are not nice for a family of 5 however) so we looked up dinosaur museums in Austin. Come to find out there is one! It's on the University of Texas campus: The Texas Memorial Museum and Texas Natural Science Center. The admission is free and that day parking was also free (in a VERY nearby garage) due to the holiday! I only took a hundred pictures so get ready...

 Outside the museum and science center is a replica of dinosaur tracks found in Texas (pretty cool).

There are also these fun vertebrae (replica) chairs. They are 8 times the size of the vertebrae from the Mosasaur (an underwater dino).

At the entrance there is a large saber tooth tiger (Rose was not getting close!) and I had to have a picture of the boys with it.

The day was absolutely lovely, too. Just had to mention that.

After you walk through the small entry way you see this. It's the Texas Pterosuar. It's hard to see tell how large this is but I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture. I practically had to lay on the floor to get this shot and the wing span is still not entirely captured. It's the "largest flying creature ever discovered." Um... awesomeness. The boys loved it.

D and Ry were identifying all the dinosaurs before I could even read the ID cards. Smart little cookies.

 Rose wanted her picture taken in front of dino skeleton but forgot to look at the camera and she ran away quickly after to find a giant petrified tree trunk.

They all carried their maps around and ohmygosh looked so adorable and like little scientists the entire time.
It's time for me to say goodbye today.... I can promise a lot more pictures tomorrow! I'll leave you with this

for more on this trip see chapter two and chapter three