Butterfly Wonderland

While my mom was visiting in February, we wanted to do a special activity on the Saturday while John could do something with us. We decided to go to Butterfly Wonderland because it was a cold, rainy day, which is quite a rarity for Phoenix.

Lucky for us, there was free face painting that day! They each picked out their designs, and got painted. It made Eliza a little bit nervous.

Next was a 3D movie about the migration of the monarch butterfly. Surprise, surprise, Miriam said this was her favorite part. That kid loves screens! It was pretty cool though, and informative. Holland was less thrilled with the movie.

Next we saw the butterfly's chrysalis. I had thought when we were waiting in line to see these that they were just examples of all of the different types of chrysalises, but these are actually active. We could see the butterflies starting to squirm out. It was so fun! There were many colors of chrysalis, including bright green, brown, and bright gold.

Then we went out into the main house. It was so humid in there! I don't know if it was more humid than normal because of the rain, but we all got kind of wet as you can probably see from the photos. As advertised there were many different types of butterflies everywhere.

Here is a huge one!

 This one was one of my favorites, it has clear wings!

The big bright blue butterflies were particularly noteworthy. The kids both really, really wanted the butterflies to land on them. They tried holding really still while the butterflies flew around and around them. Particularly Miri girl got kind of sulky because they weren't landing on her.

But she just had to be patient. It was so fun to look down and find one on you.

Eliza got one on her finger.

Daddy had one that hung on forever to the front of his shirt. Holland was pretty interested.

This photo of Miriam is priceless.

For some reason they particularly like Holland's shirt. Holly's favorite part was the stairs. :)

Finally Miriam got her wish, a big white one landed on the front her dress. Then, to everyone's amazement another one landed on her cheek. Two at once! I was thrilled that I happened to have the camera at the ready.

After that, Miriam's day became a lot happier. The butterfly on her cheek didn't stay for long, but the white one stayed around a while. It climbed from one side of her dress to the other.

I particularly liked the butterfly that landed on her hair. It looked just like a hair clip! What a fun day!
After the visit to Butterfly Wonderland. I took the two littler girls home. On the drive they both fell asleep, and because it wasn't a warm or cold day I just let them continue sleeping in the car in the garage when they got home. I propped the door from the house to the garage open and eventually had to wake them both up. Miriam was pretty pleased (really!) that she had such an unconventional nap. Holland really needed that nap too.

John dropped off Eliza and my mom at a playhouse on ASU campus. They saw The Cat in the Hat. She is trying to do individual things with all of the grandkids with the money that Jolene left her. It was really sweet!