Boonshoft Museum of Discovery

Amy and I took our total of 6 boys to the Boonshoft Mueseum yesterday, and we had a wonderful time. I think it was actually the best experience we've had there. When we drove up around 10:30, there were 2 schoolbuses there, but when we got inside, everything was quiet and empty. We played in the "little kid" area for awhile, and then we discovered all the school kids in one room having a lecture, so we played with water, climbed up the ropes and went down the slides, etc. Then when the school kids were all "released" and started tearing around randomly, knocking down kids and so on, we went back into the room they had been in. This room has a lot of neat stuff--skeletons, stuffed specimans native to Ohio, a big bug collection, lots of ocean creatures, some tanks of spiders and bugs, and most impressively, a large glass room with a big Burmese python. This python has lived there I think 15 years, and I have never seen it move, but it must have had caffeine with breakfast yesterday because he was all over the place. He had recently molted, so his skin was all in one corner, which was interesting in and of itself, but then he started out in his pool of water, slithered out and all over his cage, and then eventually went back into his pool. Neat! And the lady who had given the school kids their lecture was cleaning up, and it turns out that she does bat rehabiltation on the side. She had brought in her pet brown bat to show the kids. This is the same species of bat that infested out big, old house in Xenia, and I told Amy it was amazing how much cuter these things are when they are clean and not flying erratically around you in the middle of the night in the dark. The bat (Millie, I think her name was?) was eating meal worms out of a cup in the lady's hand, and when she was done, she crawled up onto the lady's shoulder, under a blanket she had there, and that's where she just rode around while the lady finished up. Isn't that interesting? I am not called to that, however, I can assure you! Then we went upstairs, where the school kids again were racing around, but praise the Lord, after about 5 minutes, the chaperones started rounding them up because they had to get back on the buses! Yay! So the rest of the day we pretty much had the museum to ourselves. This particular museum, since it is more of a natural science museum, also has some live animals that are native to Ohio and have been rescued. They have a river otter, which again has been sleeping every time we've visited. But this time the little guy was swimming all over the place, coming out to peer through the window at us--what a cute little fellow he was! Overall, a great day of learning AND having fun--which doesn't include racing around like savages, knocking over little people, and generally being wild!