Our Family Fun Saturday

As promised, this field trip was an inside one.  Well sort of, we didn't know that they had trails- oops:)  Nathan had been waiting for this field trip.  He is so fascinated with science and astronomy, a field trip to Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium was right up his alley.

We had a Lowe's Build & Grow to attend first.  After that, we made our way to the Planetarium.  The boys were really excited.  We got there and visited the Nature Center first:

This is either Al or Ally the Alligator- not sure who is who :)

This is either Al or Ally :)

A young alligator that was annoyed by my picture taking and decided to hiss and lunge at me- thankfully he was in his tank :)

A really big Cane Toad

This is either Cal or Lucy- 1 of Al & Ally the Alligator's babies

Lunch time :)

They even had a skunk, who we got to pet.  The skunk family just had 4 babies- awwww.  After going through the neat nature center, we decided to eat lunch.  The pavilion is completely covered, which is nice plus there are animals down there, so you get to eat your lunch with the animals.  They had a opossum, a bald eagle, a huge hog and you can see out to the alligator pond:

Poor fellow was missing half his wing :(

After lunch, we decided to look around outside before going to the animal show:

Too much cuteness:)

Turtles sun bathing :)

Time for the reptile show, which was great.  The young man did a fantastic job presenting the animals, answering questions and making sure everyone got an opportunity to hold or touch some of the animals.  After the show, we went into the reptile room and got to hold some really huge snakes:

Chris with the big albino snake

Big Cane toad

The Nile Monitor was not happy- hissing and fighting to get loose

I cannot believe Nathan held the baby Ball Python :)

Chris with the baby Ball Python

After the show, the young man got the huge snakes out :)

I am so glad he had a hold of her, she was having too much fun exploring :)

After the reptile show, we went to 1 of the Planetarium shows.  They had 3 different shows that day.  The show was great and Nathan knew most of the stars:)  It was awesome for him to really see what he has been studying this year in science.

After the Planetarium show, we went on one of the trails:

Looks so peaceful

Animal track rubbings

We thought this fellow was really neat looking.  I have never seen one this color before :)

We had a blast and were wore out by late afternoon and there was still so much to do and see.  The boys decided that we definitely wanted to go back to Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium, so we upgraded our tickets for the day with a family membership.  I was so excited when the man behind the register, which they called Great Grandpa Bob, told us that the family membership price had been reduced to $50 for a whole year.  With their regular everyday prices, it would cost my family $50 just to go 1 time.  With it being Father's Day weekend, Michael got in for free, we got discounted rates for having AAA and Chris & Kevin got discounted rates for being former JROTC members.  So, we just paid the difference to upgrade to a family membership.

I can't wait to see where our next Family Fun Saturday takes us :)