The Field Museum

Today, since it's Spring Break, we decided to take the kids up to The Field Museum.  We've never been there before, so we thought it might be a fun day trip for them.  It's not nearly as exciting as the Museum of Science and Industry, but we definitely had a good time. :-)

Of course, one of the first things you see when you enter is Sue, the T-Rex.  It's the most complete T-Rex in the world!  This, of course, made us want to see more dinosaurs, so we headed upstairs to check them out.

It was cool to go to the top floor and look down on the elephants and t-rex.  It's a beautiful museum.

Apparently, Sue's skull isn't on her body.  This is her actual skull.  Amazing to see those teeth up close, let me tell ya!

They had TONS of taxidermy animals here.  I really enjoyed getting to see them up close like that.  You can see what they look like a whole lot better this way than at the zoo.  You see the subtle differences in some of them and the bold colors that they have.  It was really cool - though I could've done without all the insects.  That part was super-gross!

To get to the dinosaurs, you have to walk through the entire evolutionary chain - according to them.  There was a lot about cells and what our world looked like at the beginning.  Not really interested in that myself, but Noah found the cells very engaging.  Livie just liked seeing the big squid above her head. ;-)

They also had lots of trilobites.  They look like bugs too, which was gross, but there were lots of different kinds and the kids (and Pete) found them very cool.

Livie fell in love with this giant/weird trilobite thingy.  She had to lay on him and get her picture taken. :-)

Finally we made it to my favorite part - the dinosaurs!!  I called this a Brachosaurus, but I know it wasn't actually that.  Guess we'll just call it a "long-neck"  Either way, it was still huge and was awesome to look at!  They had a stegosaurus and several others in this area, including three flying pterodactyls.

This duck-billed one had a noise maker that you could press down on to hear what it sounded like.  The kids liked that a lot.

Noah was fascinated with all the monkeys.  He had me take picture after picture of the monkeys.  I decided to post this one, because it was of a monkey skeleton, which was pretty neat.

This was a fossilized alligator/crocodile - one of them anyway.  We stood by it, so you could get an idea of how big it was!

The most amazing skeleton, to me, was this one of the giant sloth.  This thing was unbelievably huge!!!  I seriously can't imagine seeing one of those in real life.  I mean, look at the size of that thing!!

No visit would be complete without mammoth dung.  Yes, Noah is pointing that out in this picture. :-)

While Pete and Madie checked out the gems, Noah, Livie and I went for a little walk around the place.

We checked out this palm tree and looked at the DNA lab.  It was kinda fun.  Then we all joined back up together and went into a makeshift Egyptian tomb.  That was really neat and we walked down into it to come into the Egyptian displays.

Not sure what this was, but it was pretty cool!

They only had a couple exposed mummies for us to look at.  Almost all of them were still in their sarcophagus.  This little guy was a young boy, probably around 2-3 yrs old.  It's amazing to see them up close and realize that this was, at one time, a living, breathing boy all those years ago.

More sarcophaguses (is that the plural form of "sarcophagus"?).

Pete and the kids by the "Nile River".  Hmmm... maybe Moses was hidden in reeds like that!

They had this huge area just for animals that had been taxidermied.  I mentioned that before and it was fascinating for me to see them so up close like that.  Madie loves wolves, so she was thrilled to see this one.

I personally love Moose and, after having a close encounter with them in Colorado last summer, recognize the power and strength behind them.  You don't realize how big they are until you are standing that close to them!!

This whale skeleton was Ah-Mazing!  Look how big that thing is!!  It took us a minute to figure out what it was.  Just the coolest thing to see!

Madie took this picture of me and Pete by Sue, the T-Rex. :-)

We finished our time there by watching the 3-D movie about the Wooly Mammoth and the Ice Age.  Livie wanted her picture by the elephants, because they are so much like the Mammoth. :-)

We had a fun time at the Museum today.  Like I said, it can't compete with the Museum of Science and Industry, but it was a really neat place to visit.  But, we're definitely glad we went!