The Davis Family: The Durham Bucket List Continues

As I said earlier, with a new house bought and our current house sold, we really did have a bit of a lull in all of the activity of moving. So, we wanted to make sure to hit up some of our favorite Durham haunts before we moved on.

After our fabulous day at the Duke gardens, we had to head to one of our other favorite Durham places, one where the boys and I have spent many, many hours. We headed to the NC Museum of Life and Science. I don't know what I would have done raising my boys without a membership to that place. In fact, I was at the museum with my parents and Evan on the day I went into labor with Benny!

We started off the day at a birthday party for one of Evan's classmates, Lucy. It was so nice, she actually invited both Evan and Ben! It just shows how often Ben has visited that class and how ready he is to join in on the Kindergarten fun himself. So, we all had a great time at Lucy's party in the butterfly section of the museum. The boys love the butterfly house because there could be the possibility, no matter how small, that a butterfly would actually land on them. While no butterflies actually landed on us this trip, it was still fun.

After the party with the butterflies we went to another of the boys' favorite stops in the museum, the dinosaur trail. Now, they are not very into wandering around and looking at all of the dinosaur statues, but boy, do they love the fossil dig. They could spend hours in that pit searching for sharks' teeth and all other manner of rocks, shells, and bones. I have to say, with all my hours in the fossil pit, I've gotten pretty good at finding sharks' teeth myself, and I can always leave the pit with a few for any kids that want some. Oddly enough, the big attraction of the day at the fossil pit for the boys was Lucy and one of her friends from the party who were using the magnifying glass party favor to burn leaves. My boys do love fire, especially Evan, so that was a big hit!

We didn't make it to every corner of the museum that day, but we did make it to one other favorite spot that still baffles me as to why they like it so much. There's a spot inside the museum where they have hooked up a projector from the ceiling. That projector displays a series of lines and circles on the floor below and they move and change. The boys absolutely love running back and forth jumping over those lines and circles. We keep saying that we need to build one of those projectors into our basement, so we'll see if that happens. Finally, after one last picture in front of the big rocket ship, we said goodbye to the museum and headed to one of our other favorite Durham spots that just happened to be nearby.

(starting fires with the birthday girl)

(our lucky day-two four leaf clover finds!)

(hugging the rocket ship goodbye)

We had to stop by Locopops before we left! Locopops makes the best popsicles, or Mexican style paletas, and we've stopped by many times after hikes on the Eno or other Durham adventures. They even have a chicken flavored version for the times when Ripple is with us. This time though, it was just the human contingent. I was surprised when everyone but me opted for the fruit juice versions while I had my traditional creamy Mexican chocolate flavor. It doesn't matter what you get, you can't go wrong with Locopops!

(Mmmm...Locopops!)

The day finished off with something that wasn't necessarily Bucket List inspired, but it was still fun. Since the boys had been in to sporting events of all kinds recently, I wanted them to be able to see the Kentucky Derby. So, after our morning adventures, we headed home. Since you're supposed to dress up for the derby, we all found some silly hats, Ian and I concocted an official Kentucky Derby beverage, and we all sat down for the most exciting minute in sports. We all picked our horses, and I'm happy to say that mine turned out to be the official triple crown winner, American Pharoah! Too bad I'm not a wagering person!