Butterfly Wonderland

After our time in Indiana, we all flew to Arizona to spend spring break with Karin and her boys. Bethy was also on her spring break, so she, Reece and V meet up with us at Karin's house. 

On our first day, we visited the new aquarium, Odysea in Scottsdale Arizona which is the largest aquarium in the Southwest United States. There are over 30,000 animals and 500 different species in 50 exhibits, including the living sea carousel, underwater ocean walking tunnel, and many interactive exhibits. In addition to the impressive aquarium, the Odysea complex is also home to America's largest indoor butterfly pavilion, Butterfly Wonderland, this is where we began our visit.

We began with a 3D movie about the life cycle of a monarch butterfly

Next, we walked through the butterfly emergence gallery and saw hundreds of intricate chrysalis of several species of butterflies. Some of them had golden "threads" woven into them which I found so interesting and beautiful.

Then we were escorted into the gorgeous indoor, rainforest pavilion which is home to more than 3,000 butterflies from all over the world. I have visited quite a few butterfly conservatories all over the world, and this one by far had the most butterflies, they were every where and there was such a variety of species, it was incredible.

In addition to the butterflies, there were also several types of small birds living in the pavilion. They were all very unique.

V fell in love with this fuzzy snake in the gift store. That girl loves her reptiles.

After visiting The Butterfly Wonderland, but before heading into the Odysea Aquarium, we checked out two more fun attractions located at this fun complex.

First up was the Rainforest Mirror Maze. No one really knew what to expect from this attraction, especially as we were all handed latex gloves before entering the maze. Turns out, this mirror maze is incredibly cool! The pathways are lined with mirrors, creating infinite corridors and endless mind tricks. We had to feel our way around to try and discover the elusive butterfly and the way out. All guests wear gloves to help keep the mirrors clean so the illusion isn't ruined for anyone. It took us about 20- 30 minutes to find the way out, enough time for it to be fun and magical but not frustrating.

After the mirror maze, we all tried out the laser maze, all the boys, including grandpop, were super excited about this one. We divided ourselves up into teams of two, I teamed up with Thomas. There were two ways to play, one was to try to make it through the maze without touching any lasers, and the other was to try and karate chop all the lasers until they were gone. The second way was suggested for the littles, so that is the one Thomas and I did and it was so much fun! We both karate chopped all the lasers then we would hit our "restock" buttons at the same time to get a whole new lay out of lasers to chop. Thomas and I went through about 4 or 5 rounds of lasers! Karin and James did the same kind of maze.

The older kids loved trying out the other kind of maze, there were tv monitors in the queue area so we could watch their progress. It was like watching our family members in their very own spy movie. 

Ben and Will got first place! They would make amazing spies.