Natural History Museum

On Monday, the boys didn't have school (I think it was because the super bowl was on Sunday) but we took advantage of that. A friend of mine and her son went with us to Frankfurt to the Natural History Museum. It was FANTASTIC!!! The museum was HUGE and had so many things to see!!! The building was built in 1907 and looks really neat

A great many of the thousands, yes thousands, of exhibits are unique in the world and extremely rare.

Outside the building is a huge brontosaurus, the boys were very excited just seeing that before we went in.

they are so funny, they wanted to strike a pose

One of the dinosaurs, it was truly amazing at how many they had!! There was T-rex, brontosaurus, triceratops, and many more. They were up close and personal, not really far away. That was what was so cool about it also. It is right in your face.

Michael touching one, which we found out later he wasn't supposed to do. Oops

I forgot what this one was called, but it is just the foot and leg they are standing buy. I would not want to meet one of those when they were living. Of course we are so small they might not even see us puny humans.

This is looking down on the dinosaurs - I couldn't get them all in that is only about 2/3 of the room.

These were cool footprints on the way to the dinosaurs. The boys told me I had to step on them and not the other part of the path. :-)

They had a little area for kids to do some hands on things. There was this puzzle and then a magnetic one that were three different dinosaurs mixed in puzzle pieces they had to re-assemble on the wall.

This was a huge piece of petrified wood that I really liked the colors in.

as you can see some of the pieces came from the good ole USA and this one is from AZ where we just were.

AJ pointing out one of the many fossils we saw in there. It was just a great educational trip for them!!

This one is from Montana

Michael decided that he needed to take a break :-)

They had sooooo many different types of rocks and crystals, etc. in there. The boys were fascinated with them all. There were some that when put under a black light glowed. I thought it was really cool too!!!

This one was just up the road from Sierra Vista, AZ - Bisbee it's a great little town.

They had a whole section on planets, you pressed a button and it illuminated the ones that only dealt with that planet. And just for all of you who are wondering, they did take Pluto down. :-)

This was cool too!!! It showed the different layers of the earth. Can I say so educational!!! AJ was really good and was able to tell me the different levels of the earth. In the next room it talked about the different plates and how they moved and when.

I thought this was really cool, again with American items in a German museum.

One bug I would not want to come across. There were actually many others that I wouldn't either in this room. Some of them were spiny, some were huge. Lots of creepy crawlers.

Look out AJ is getting eaten up by a big Snake!!

Yep there were tons of fish and sea creatures there also.

I had to get a picture of a monkey next to my monkeys :-)

AJ thought the lions were really cool!!

Michael said he was going to take on the Panda

I couldn't help myself with this one, I thought it was absolutely hilarious!!

Michael was getting a little silly - by this time we had been there for almost 4 hours and we still hadn't seen the whole thing.

They had these all over the museum, this one showed how the ostrich runs in comparison to a human

I thought this turkey was really beautiful!

Michael said that he was going to beat it up!

We started seeing snakes in there and decided we needed to take some pictures for Grandpa and make sure he knew where they are!! I am sure that he LOVED the snake pictures the best!

They were being like dinosaurs

The big T-rex that they really wanted to get a picture with. It was really cool!!

Michael getting ready to beat up the dinosaur!! All in all it was such a fantastic experience. I didn't even post up the all the different things that were there. They had shells, mammoths, elephants, jaguars and so much more!! There were rows and rows of the glass cabinets with all types of animals, birds, fish, etc. We didn't stay long at any one exhibit and we still didn't see everything in the four hours that we were there. After that long we decided that the boys had had enough. They were so good and took in so much information. AJ really soaked it in like a sponge. He so enjoyed it!!! All three of them did!!! One really nice thing is that Frankfurt has quite a few museums that we still have yet to check out and is only a little over an hour away!!! Another great thing is, the Frankfurt airport is where you guys can fly in to visit us and we will come pick you up!! :-)