conuly

First, 'dul flaked out on Jenn and didn't take the nieces this weekend. Jenn already had plans, so I volunteered to take them to the Natural History Museum on Saturday. And the VERY DAY I agreed to do this, I snagged a free ticket to the museum and a special exhibit for four people from my local library!

(We decided on the butterflies, but more on this in a minute.)

So we went to the museum, and the A wasn't running, so we took the 2 all the way up (because it's running local...) and when we got off I immediately spotted a bookstore. "No, Connie, we can come here AFTER the museum." Good point, girls, we'd've stayed there all day. So I went down a street one lower than I would've gone down if we'd headed to the bookstore... and I found a pile of free picture books in good condition! I picked them all up, some to keep, some to send up to their grandmother's, and a whole bunch to send to Evangeline's teacher. And a few board books for our neighbor as well.

At the museum I took one look at the long line and groaned - should've gone in the side! - and just as I was about to resign myself to fate I noticed that there's a special line for people with free vouchers. WE had a free voucher - and there was no line there! Only one person! WIN!

And we saw the butterflies, who loved loved LOVED Ana's bright-colored sweater (Ana generously handed it over to her sister, without even being *asked*, when her sister got jealous) and landed on it incessantly. They asked the docent a question: What's with the butterfly sitting on an orange slice in your hand? I also asked the docent a question: What's with the shirt? Is that honestly an unholy combination of Dr. Who and Back to the Future? ("Yes, thanks for noticing!") We saw monarch pupae, which have a line of gold beads on them. Adorable, really.

And then we went to the dinosaurs, and that was fun, and we went to the Hall of Minerals where they played tag (that was my fault - I mentioned that their mother and I used to do that, and they just took off. D'oh!) and we went to the discovery room where I confidently and intelligently expounded upon the specific type of baby carrier in the "cultures of the world" drawer to some fascinated museum-goers... inadvertently giving them the impression that I worked there. Whoops. But I did get to show them how to tie it on and share the babywearing love, and that's the important point here.

And then we went home and ate incredibly bad food (McDonalds) for dinner because it was already 7 and I, for one, was too hungry to care. And we all snuggled together for bedtime (because the heat was being iffy all day, sad to say, but it seems to be largely working now) and... yeah.

It was easily one of the best days EVER. I mean - free books! Butterflies! Babywearing! And we didn't lose Evangeline's gloves at coat check like we thought we had, so... yeah.