Surprise Field Trip!

I received an email Thursday from an email/blog friend who recently moved to a city about 45-50 miles north of where I live. She's a Close To My Heart consultant, and while we'd chatted via email/blogs for a while, we hadn't met in person. Christi emailed me to let me know that she had organized a field trip for her homeschool group to the Butterfly Pavilion and realized I lived pretty close to it. She invited the girls and I to join them. Since Amy's still in school, she couldn't go. But getting Jessica's enthusiastic YES when I asked her if she wanted to go sealed the deal. Here are some pictures from our surprise field trip. We have been to the Butterfly Pavilion many times, but never as part of a field trip. The first few pictures are of Jessica and her two new friends, Chloe and Natalie checking out Madagasgar Hissing Beetles as part of the initial lesson the students got. The girls didn't want to pick them up, so I did the honors. LOL I love how fascinated Jessica was and how close she wanted to get to observe them.
After the great lesson, we were free to visit the rest of the Pavilion. Christi planned the time to coincide with the release of butterflies (another thing we'd never seen before). It was hard for me to take pictures because the number of people watching made it difficult for Jessica to see anything, so I held her up. This next photo is of a huge moth! It's the one that drew the most oohs and awwws at the release I think. What fascinated me, beyond its size, is the fact that they live only a week and the markings on the wings which resemble snake heads!
I don't know if it was because it was late morning, early afternoon, but the butterflies where quite active on this trip. Jessica loved seeing the Blue Morthos (courtesy of Go, Diego, Go) and pointed out each one she saw. I wanted to get this butterfly with its wings open, but wasn't successful. I did like how the butterfly was in focus and the background wasn't. A happy accident, I assure you!

One of the more recent features in the Butterfly Pavilion is the area called Shrunk. They have scaled the exhibits to be huge, so you feel like you have shrunk when you walk through it. It's hands on, too, which is great. Anyway, Jessica's favorite part by far is the honeycomb you can play on.
It was a fun trip and I'm so glad Christi thought to invite us. Although we didn't get to chat much, it was wonderful meeting her in person. Thanks, Christi!!