a Dallas Museum and Dinosaur Valley State Park

We took a little road trip this week to celebrate my birthday! It was a rather short adventure - we left Wednesday, arriving in Dallas about 7 p.m., and we got home late Thursday night (well, actually Friday morning at 2 a.m.). Dallas is about 5 hours away from us.

Our first stop Thursday morning was the Museum of Nature and Science,

located in Fair Park.

There are actually two different buildings, where the nature and science sections are located. You gain entrance to these two museums by purchasing a ticket ($10, adults; $7, kids - I think). Fair Park is home to many other attractions, including an aquarium and discovery gardens.

The kids were really excited about the dinosaur skeletons. I think this was first museum they've ever visited that included real dinosaurs and parts, of this magnitude. Dash, of course, was especially thrilled.

It really is something else to see these structures in real life. Ryan's favorite was the Protostega, an underwater turtle with an 11 feet long shell. Can you even imagine something like that coming at you in the water?

There were plenty of hands-on activities, like this ball-release roller coaster.

One of our favorite rooms to explore was the Mineral Room. There is no way the pictures can do it justice. I would not have thought I, or any of us, would have gotten that worked up over a room of rocks, but seriously, they were amazing.

I realized I am a big fan of the Amethyst.

The area in which the museum is situated - all right there next to the Cotton Bowl - is large with lots to do. This little lake is right in the middle of everything. The kids LOVED running around on these paths that were right over the water.

I was just WAITING for one of them to fall in, but we managed to all stay dry, thank goodness.

It was hard to tear them away from here.

I asked Ryan to please build me something like this, all throughout our woods. :)

now onto the science building...making bubbles

We spent entirely too much time in front of "A trip down intestinal lane," a description of what exactly happens to your food during digestion, complete with a catchy song.

And, yup, it even shows the people rushing to the bathroom.

Another one of our favorite exhibits: push the button and make this guy puke.

Could there be anything more fun than that?

There is also a Children's Museum portion in the basement of the science building.

We finished up our visit with some playtime down there.

Lunch and my "birthday party" were at the same place we ate all of our meals on this trip:

Spiral Diner.

(I wrote about the food portion of our trip on my other blog.)

Next stop on our journey: Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas. Dash really needed to take a nap, but he kept saying, "I can't go to sleep because I'm so excited!"

This area "contains some of the best preserved dinosaur tracks in the world."

You can learn more about it by watching this video.

swimming in the Paluxy River

I can't even tell you how nice it was being out there.

We found the perfect little circular pool here.

Aww...so relaxing...a great way to end my fun birthday trip.

Linkin' up to Field Trip Friday!