Back to Balboa

Annabelle really got the hang of riding on her boogie board on her belly today. She had big fun. CJ, not so much. His board took a chunk out of the top of his foot, so his outing was abbreviated.

G&G had a front row seat for all the action. 


SCIENCE CENTER SAN DIEGO STYLE: We decided to make a return trip to sprawling Balboa Park today. Though we were out there yesterday to check out the Air & Space Museum, today, our sights were set on the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and the San Diego Natural History Museum.

As good fortune would have it, our Pacific Science Center membership in Seattle got us into BOTH of the places today, thanks to a reciprocity agreement. Sweet! It saved us a bundle. (And yesterday, our membership at the Museum of Flight in Seattle got us into the Air & Space Museum for free!)

The kids loved the San Diego Science Center. There were so, so many hands on activities. They built an arch, climbed through sculptures, and scaled a geometric mountain.  There was an entire room dedicated to building marble runs (something they have lots of experience in from their science class). 

 They loved building sculptures with shapes that looked like star bits in Super Mario Galaxy.

From the Science Museum it was on the the Natural History Museum. 

 

There, we saw all sorts of prehistoric creatures. 

We saw lots of skulls and other skeleton parts. It was great - many the displays allowed viewers to manipulate body parts. Here, Annabelle's checking out the mechanics of a ball joint.

There were several sea creature models on display, including a very large and scary shark hanging in the atrium. 

We were about ready to leave the Natural History Museum when Christian consulted a map and noticed there was a mineral and gemstone display on the lower level. Perfect! The kids have both been so interested in precious metals and pretty stones ever since they began playing Minecraft.

So down to the basement we went, and boy, were we glad we did! The display was STUNNING.

There was a lovely mix of stunning jewelry and eye popping, huge gems/rocks/stones. Above is an enormous (about the size of four human heads) stone embedded with opals. And then there was this jade specimen. It was bigger than the two kids put together!

And then there were things like this lovely butterfly made with many gorgeous garnets.

Carved out of turquoise, "Neptune's Daughters" was a jaw dropper, to be sure.

CJ was just SO thrilled by it all. Just a day before we left for San Diego, he was combing the Internet, looking for a periodic table featuring gemstones. Imagine his delight upon finding an oversize, interactive one today!