ROAAAAR!

 On Monday JZ and I took Caden to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see the T.Rex encounter that is ending next week.  It's been at the museum since September, but why not wait until the last minute to go see it, right?  We knew the museum would be crazy since it was the official New Year's Day holiday, but we decided to go anyway.  Our plan was to go early, leave early, and hope to avoid any meltdowns.

We got to the museum about 9:30 and went straight to the planetarium to see a 23 min. "movie" about space starring Elmo and Big Bird!  It was our first "movie theater" experience and we didn't know how he would do.  So we sat in the back corner.  Just in case. 



He's roaring in the picture because he thought the movie was going to have dinosaurs in it



He loved the movie and talked through the entire thing - "Where Elmo go, Mommy?  I see moon!  Boo-tiful balloons!"  The show was full of two and three year olds, so it was ok that he was noisy.  The only part that he didn't like was when we "zoomed" to the moon.  The picture went all Twilight Zone-esque and my tummy felt a little funny too.  He said, "All done Elmo!" and was ready to run out of there, but he got over it and watched the rest of the movie with us.  23 min. was all he could handle, but it's a start!

After the movie we went to see the dinosaur exhibit.  I was a little worried that the dinosaurs would be a little too scary.  They were super cool - they moved and roared just like real dinosaurs - but also super noisy and a teensy bit scary.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in there, and I'm so bummed because he was so funny and had the BEST time.  He wasn't scared at all and ran back and forth between the dinosaurs roaring back at them.  JZ was able to read all of the info about the dinosaurs (his favorite part) and I chased CP around the (thankfully, relatively small) exhibit.  At one point he even told me to, "Stay.  I go over here."  Yeah, right!  I wasn't sure how we were going to get him out of there, he was having so much fun!  So, we told him we were going to go see more dinosaurs and we took him to the "regular" dinosaurs - the ones that are just bones and always there.  That seemed to satisfy him and we were able to get out peacefully. 

He loved the dinosaur bones too - not quite as much, but he still had a good time.  At least we were able to take pictures in that exhibit.

After leaving those dinosaurs he looked over the edge and saw people sitting in the food court eating lunch.  He said, "I eat lunch too."  That was our cue to get out of dodge, stop for lunch, and be home in time for a nap.  We had a wonderful time together and it was such a fun way to ring in the new year!

ROAAAAR!!!