Now that our house guest has left the state, we can get back to business. We did accomplish some semi-geeky things this weekend. That is, if you consider educational excursions geeky.
On Saturday, the gang headed over to Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. I hadn't been there since they made the big change from the Camden Aquarium to Adventure Aquarium. It was a neat trip. They have an area where you can touch some of the animals. I thought it was a little weird to have shrimp to handle but those that touched them said it felt cool. Unfortunately, the Swim With The Sharks area was closed. According to the sign, it will be back on September 22. We watched the seals getting fed and my daughter got her face painted like a Mermaid Princess, which took me forever to scrub the sparkles off her face. The only down side of the trip was that the previously free Children's Garden now costs a whopping $3.50 to get into. Otherwise we all had a great time and I can't wait to go back to see what Swimming With The Sharks is like.
For Sunday's adventure, we hit up two museums. First, we went to the Franklin Institute Science Museum. I've always loved visiting this place. My husband and I came here on our honeymoon. Sadly, most of the exhibits weren't functioning then. However, since there is currently a King Tut exhibit that brings in tons of people, the older exhibits have been retooled so they work properly. My personal favorite is the Giant Heart. It's basically a huge walk-through heart that shows you the path that your blood takes through the heart. When I was a kid, it used to be in a room all by itself. Now there is a huge health and wellness area around it with skeletons and x-ray machines and all sorts of neat gadgets. I think this may be my favorite room in the entire museum.
After we finished being science nerds, we headed over to The Academy of Natural Sciences. I think we mostly went for the butterflies. While we were watching the butterflies flying around us, the boys were lucky enough to have some land on their hair. (I believe this is because the boys have lighter hair while all the girls present had dark hair.) My daughter is currently on a bit of a dinosaur kick so she really enjoyed looking at the dinosaur bones and trying to identify the various types.
It was a really awesome weekend where everyone got to see and do something they enjoyed. Since my daughter just started kindergarten last week, this was a great opportunity to learn some things she probably won't learn for a couple of years. There were definitely enough geeks around to explain something to her if she didn't understand! Whether you are an adult or a child, if you are in the Philadelphia area, please try to take a day or two to visit some of these wonderful museums. I can pretty much guarantee you will have a good time.