Time's a-wasting...

Well, it is with a bit of sadness I must report that Luke is no longer a newborn.
By definition, newborn  is the term used for first ten days of a baby's life.
Seeing as how he was now exactly two weeks old yesterday, we realized we had celebrate.
We asked him what he wanted to do for his two week birthday celebration.
He said he wanted to visit the Natural History Museum and learn about dinosaurs.
So...off we went. 

He was absolutely fascinated by the Mesozoic era of the Earth's history.
Rachel was able to answer his questions about the various theories on why dinosaurs became extinct.
Just for your own information, the museum offered four theories on that topic. 
I personally favored the "Float and Bloat" theory, because it was the most fun one to say.

OK...the truth:
The Natural History Museum here just opened a few months ago, and we three adult wanted to go visit it while Rachel's mom Debra (aka: Gigi) was in town.
The Museum is gorgeous.  It is designed to blend into its surrounding and the striped part is made from copper which  has been allowed to naturally tarnish.
When the copper was first installed (using copper from the mine just across the valley) it glowed up on the hill.
Inside there is a wall with the same copper so one can understand how it looked before and after it was exposed to the elements.

I want to ask (on my next visit...) why some of the copper tarnished to a green that perfectly matched the spring green now appearing on the surrounding mountainside.
BTW...that's a magpie soaring in the picture above.

The museum roof top has solar panels which power the museum's energy need.
Along the edges of the roof top are gardens.
(I wish all flat roof structures would plant such gardens...wouldn't that make the view out of the upper story windows even that much better?)

The museum has five stories.  The view from the top story deck is breathtaking.
There actually are architectural tours of the building offered!

We could see for miles...but mostly kept looking at a closer  two week old wonder.

The wind was really whipping our hair about but a gentleman visiting with his five children offered to take our picture.
Wind or no wind, it was fun to have a picture of the four of us.

The museum is so kid friendly with just as many "hands on"  displays as there are "off limits" displays behind glass.
I got a big laugh out of this display which allows visitors to try their hands at twining as the Native Americans did when making baskets. 
The young boy who was attempting to twine looked up at me and said  "This game is SO confusing!"
Like most boys that I know, he was trying to figure out what you needed to do to WIN he game.
So funny....

I went ga-ga over the natural cotton-hand knitted in Peru- finger puppets that were for sale in the Museum gift shop.
There were so many creatures...I loved the butterfly and the frog and the snail...oh and the turkey....
I thinking corporations should buy entire collections and hand them out to employees who stuck in three hour long meetings.
Wouldn't meetings be a lot more fun if everyone had a finger puppet to play with?

On the way out Rachel decided Luke wanted to be fed to a dinosaur.
Seriously...what boy wouldn't think it was just the BEST EVER
to be eaten by a dinosaur on their two week birthday???
Team Luke Grandmothers have both raised sons...so we understood and fully approved of the feeding.

At the last moment....Rachel chickened out and snatched Luke away from the hungry dinosaur.

Luke should be allowed to fatten up just a tad bit more first.
(And of course there are those trying teenage years in the future when the possibility of feeding your son to a dinosaur become such an obsession anyway).
So...speaking of feeding...it was now lunch time.

 

The Irish tavern for lunch...what two week old boy wouldn't want to go to an Irish tavern for lunch?
He stuck to his favorite mommy style brew for this visit.
And he then caught a wee nap in his Gigi's arms.
Whew.
What a busy day of firsts!
And so ended Luke's two week birthday celebration.
We are trying to guess where he will ask to go for his one month birthday.
A trip to NASA?
Maybe a guided tour of Chicago's O'Hare International airport?
Or a concert at the Kennedy Center?
Hmmm....
(I think Luke's two "over" educated Grandmothers are game for just about anything!)