Dinosaurs Backstage Pass

I haven’t bought any deals from sites like Groupon or Living Social in a long time.  Mostly because I got tired of buying the deal only to completely forget all about it until it was long expired.  Actually, I think it was Phil who got tired of my doing that.

But this past summer, a deal came to our attention that was right up our alley.  A yearlong family membership to the LA Natural History Museum for two adults and get this, up to four kids!  A deal that includes all of us at a place we’d been meaning to visit anyway?  Well, sure!

And happily, mostly because Phil made sure we redeemed the deal before the expiration, we actually managed to visit a couple times already.  One of the perks is something called a “Safari Scavenger Hunt” which happens once a month and allows members a behind-the-scenes peek at things going on in the museum.

The July scavenger hunt was all about dinosaurs and the Tsai crew was all over it.

We started off behind the glass windows where the archeologists work carefully digging out fossils.

A dinosaur tooth?  Claw?  Toe bone?  I forget now.  Heh heh, it would seem that I wasn’t paying very close attention…

This archeologist showed us what he’d spent the last eight months painstakingly unearthing.  I kept thinking the whole time that this is one job I simply could not and would not want to ever do.  Eight months?!  However, I did think the taped up black glasses were an adorable feature on him.

And then they led us into the bowels (basement) of the museum.  There was only one other guy with us in our group.  He was… interesting.

There, the kids got to touch whale baleen.

And elephant teeth!

Okay, some of us were interested in all of this.  Others of us were just plain bored.  You can guess who.

Then it was back into the main part of the museum to do the scavenger hunt!

And to do a little learning about dinosaurs along the way.

The kids had a great time and didn’t even realize there was any learning going on at the same time.

Of course, their very favorite part was getting to pick out a mini dinosaur toy at the end.

Ah, kids.  Whaddaya gonna do?