Fun Friday Morning

Friday morning we decided to take Hailey to the Natural History Museum here in Raleigh. We had heard it was really good and they were hosting a special dinosaur exhibit that Ryan wanted to see. Plus, Hailey has been really into dinosaurs lately after playing with Ryan's dinosaurs at Mimi's house, so we figured she would like it too.
Since we've been traveling and missing our family Fridays together we decided to try and take Hailey out to breakfast as a treat. We don't really go out to restaurants unless you count Chick-Fil-A occasionally so there was no telling how it would go. We went to a place called First Watch that had just opened up and we had heard good things about. When we were seated and ordering Hailey enjoyed playing with the coffee creamers, building towers.

Our food came out really fast which was perfect because we were hungry. Hailey got a chocolate chip pancake that was HUGE. She ate almost half of it! It was soooo good!

Just about the time Ryan and I finished eating and were getting the check, she started to get antsy and wanted to see the dinosaurs so it worked out wonderfully!
When we first got to the museum we actually went in the wrong door and ended up just exploring about half of the free stuff before we even stumbled on the special exhibit. It was so neat! They had tons of exhibits and even some live animals in tanks (fish and snakes) Hailey loved looking at them all!

there were bats in the top of the tree (not live ones thankfully)

 

They even had a regular dinosaur section not included in the special exhibit. We actually thought it was better than the exhibit.

Hailey was fascinated by everything and just kept running from one thing to another squealing and "oooh"ing over it.
Ryan went and got our tickets for the dinosaur exhibit and we went into. Truthfully, we were kind of let-down with it. It was pretty small and we were thinking it was going to have some dinosaur skeletons and such. It didn't. They had a few kid-type things like this game and a big puzzle but mostly it was a huge dinosaur replica and a voice-over video telling about it.

The coolest part was this dinosaur "dig site" for kids to dig for dinosaur bones in. They got to wear goggles and use a chisel and brush to try and find the bones. Hailey loved it!

And so no one thinks I'm a party pooper...

Hailey insisted that Ryan and I wear goggles too!
After we left the exhibit we quickly went through the rest of the free part of the museum because it was approaching lunch and nap time. They had a huge sea life area that was really neat!
All in all, the Natural History Museum was really neat and definitely a place we will visit again. But, maybe not for their special exhibits...we had tons of fun doing the free stuff!