Learning is Cool

Our family just got back from the one and only Santa Barbra California. It was the best vacation! We did so many cool things, we didn't even make it to the beach, we were too busy having educational experiences that e x p a n d e d our minds. The family planners were busy scheming on how to keep the little ones entertained every minute of the day to keep from going crazy. Here are some of the cool things that we found close by our dream like rental house. Plus I also received some more personal photography lessons from Professor Madison, she even let me borrow one of her extra SLRs so all these pictures that you are all probably thinking are amazing are the products of those lessons, thanks Bethy!

.... THE REST IS HISTORY ....


Our first adventure began at the Santa Barbra Museum of Natural History! I love these museums they endlessly fascinate me, our little world is just so full of cool and crazy things! We saw fossils, learned about squids, got up close and personal with beautiful butterflies, studied the numerous species of fowls of the earth and much more, it was a very educational experience as well as entertaining.

Its a very pretty museum as well as being fascinating. The walls are covered in these vines that grow these Jumanji (I have no idea how to spell that) type flowers that I thought were awesome.

I couldn't resist this picture. Dad looking at owls, so perfect.

They even had an art gallery! Yay for art!! However this wasn't your ordinary art. From a distance dosen't this look like a nice typical rendition of Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte? Yet a closer look proves it isn't normal pointalism, its pointalism with soda cans!

This one is a little more obvious, what else would this good fellow be made out of? Dollar bills!

... Exploring The Deep Blue ...

After we were done learning about natural history we headed over to the wharf to learn about the ocean at the sea center. I loved it here, its small but jam packed full of neatness. We got to pet sharks as well as several other fascinating sea creatures. One of the most interesting things to me were their collection of shark egg sacks. They are leathery pouches, often referred to as mermaid pouches, that people find on the beach and if they can see the baby shark moving around inside they bring it to the sea center. I also loved watching the little kids get excited, or creeped out, at the extremely unique sea creatures.

Don't these look like caterpillars? I thought so they are actually the tentacles of a Sunflower Starfish which is HUGE and can move very FAST, it can actually catch a fish and eat it! CrAzY!

This little guy was another one of my favorites. He is a decorator crab and takes things from his environment to decorate his shell with. In this buddies tank they had put a ball of red yarn so that is what he decorated his shell with. They told us that decorator crabs are very fashion savvy and will constantly be changing what is on their shell. I thought that was funny

This little buddy is very sneaky and blends in with KELP, he is very hard to find. Kinda makes me a little suspicious of all kelp that I see on the beach. The volunteer told us that they are not fun to run into.