World of Wurdemans: Gainesville

Saturday we made an unplanned trip to Gainesville. Last weekend the Eikelands drove down to visit my parents. Erik had to go back to work Wednesday, so he drove my mom's car home leaving Lisa and the kids and their van with my parents. Saturday was the meet and swap in Gainesville. I thought they were just going to have lunch and leave, so, even though Matthew suggested it, I never thought about going because it would be too hard on the kids. Plus I didn't want to drive that far just for lunch! Lisa called me on their way up and said that they were also going to go to the butterfly exhibit at the Florida Museum, so we could make a day of it. Matthew was out with Robbie and his phone was dead, so I couldn't talk to him about going until he got home later. He was fine with it, so we packed up the kids and headed to Gainesville.

They were already there and we were going to meet them at the restaurant. We happened to pull in just as my mom was taking Kayleigh to the bathroom, so we grabbed the kids and headed to the table. My mom was sitting in the back of the van when I talked to Lisa and didn't know that we were coming. Both Mom and Kayleigh were surprised to see us sitting at the table. Luckily no one was in a hurry to get up and go because we still had to eat our lunch. Robbie did good sitting and eating, but as soon as he was done he wanted to be with Kayleigh and Brian.

We headed to the museum after lunch. Even though I went to school there for 2 years I never went to the museum. It was really nice. We started in a play room where the kids were fascinated by a wind tunnel. There were different materials that you could put into it and watch it fly up. There was a little slide that Robbie liked going down, too.

We moved on to see other exhibits. There was one about the canoes that the Native Americans built. Robbie got into one of the canoes and apparently thought it was a bed because he kept lying down in it. I thought he might take a nap there!

The butterfly exhibit and garden was very well done. There were a ton of butterflies in the garden and most of us had one land on us (minus the kids because they were moving too much). I'm pretty sure my dad had the most land on him. We got there in time for the butterfly release, but that wasn't very exciting because none of the butterflies wanted to fly out of the box, so they were released by hand. One interesting fact I read was that the museum imports chrysalises from around the world and is careful not to have plants in the garden that the caterpillars would eat, so even if the butterflies mated, they couldn't repopulate because they don't want non-native species to possibly get out and harm native plants.

We left the museum around 4:30. I suggested just going out to dinner because there isn't much between Gainesville and home. Erik wanted to show the kids where he goes to school (he's working on his master's), so they went on their own way while the rest of us went to Chuy's, a tex-mex restaurant. It's a good thing we got there early because it was packed when we left.

We had a lot of fun, so I'm glad we went!

Tons of pictures since I remembered to bring (and use!) the camera.

Grandma and 1/3 of her grandkids