Dino Trippin'

Recently we saw a preview for the new Jurassic World movie coming out this summer. 

I love Jurassic Park and so I am excited to see it. 

Abi asked about the movies and I told her they might be a little scary to her. 

But she wanted to watch them and then go to the new movie with us if she liked them. 

I decided it would be best to watch them the first time in daylight. 

So, one Saturday we set up Maddy in her room with some fun things to do and Abi and I had a movie date. She loved it. 

The next weekend we watched the second one. Abi's opinion was the same as mine. It's just okay. Nowhere near the first one. 

Then we watched the third. Again she had the same opinion as me- liked it a lot more than the 2nd but still not as good as the 1st. 

Now she is excited to see what the 3rd will be like. 

Well, after each movie Abi would tell Maddy about things from it. 

It started a dino mania around our house. They wanted to watch and read anything to do with dinosaurs. 

Maddy started watching Dinosaur train. 

She already loved Triceratops because of her stuffed animal she got at Build a Dino in Disney World. 

And now it was going everywhere with her. 

They were pulling out the blocks and dinosaur toys and making dino habitats. 

It was so much fun. 

I decided it would be really fun to take a day trip and go to Vernal to see dinosaur bones while they were so interested in all of it. 

I talked to my mom and she said that she and my dad would like to go too. 

Doug wasn't really interested and didn't want to miss work for it. 

So, on Chinese New Year, the girls and I went down to my parents house and spent the night so that we could leave from their house the next morning and take a trip to Vernal. 

My dad wanted to drive so that made it so they didn't have to come up to get us. 

The girls were so excited!

Maddy had to, of course, bring her Cutie Sweetheart. They enjoyed looking at our Usbourne dinosaur books on the way. 

We got a little nervous as we got to the higher altitudes and we had a lot of snow on the road..

But soon the snow was gone. 

We had decided to stay the night at a hotel and I had found a room on Trip advisor that had really good reviews at the Best Western Dinosaur Inn. 

We went to see if we could check in but it wasn't quite ready yet so we went to McDonald's for lunch. 

We were kind of nervous because once we saw the hotel it did not look good. At all. 

I was the only one that went into the lobby and it smelled like stale smoke and just seemed old and run down. 

We decided to give them some more time and head to the dinosaur museum first. 

Saw this guy on our way...

So funny!See that baby dino in the Easter basket?

The Dino museum was pretty cheap and Maddy was free so that was nice. 

And the best thing- we had the place to ourselves. 

There was one other family there when we arrived but we never ran into them again. 

That's pretty unusual here in Utah to be in a children's museum by yourself!

Maddy loved this little kid corner where she got to put together puzzles. 

Abi built dino homes. 

Trying to identify fossils and bones. 

Digging for fossils...

Abi put on a little play for us. 

They enjoyed this room. 

The papers show them different species to try to find. 

Some were easy and some were really hard. 

Maddy and a raptor. 

This part reminded us a little of Jurassic Park. I asked Abi if she would jump down onto the dino if that raptor got in. 

We visited the gift shop and got some dig kits. I had been looking for some online and they were 15-20 bucks and didn't have Triceratops. But here they had little baby kits with Triceratops for only $3. 

Grandma also got them each a little stuffed animal. 

Then we went outside to the park area. 

My mom imitating the dinosaur in front of her. 

Abi wanted them to pretend to be these two dinosaurs. 

There were fish swimming around in the pond. 

Abi was so funny. 

Next we would go check into our room.