BYU with Kids

After I took Nathan to the airport in Provo (he was flying to Arizona to help mom with her move to Utah), the kids and I went to BYU to have some fun on a rainy day. Nathan had recommended an unusual art exhibit at the museum, so we went there first. The stick art was so unique and interesting. There was also a mud exhibit. They had made art out of mud such as the picture on the wall. That was cool, but I’m not sure what the floor exhibit of mud is.

The rest of the museum was under construction so I decided to take the kids to the Wilkensen Center. First we went to the BYU bookstore. I got the above picture of the kids with the BYU cougar (below). That was as close as they would get to it. Link only did it because Locke did.

The BYU bookstore was being renovated and looked great. They had moved all the BYU insignia items to the front, which is what I always thought they should have done (that’s what people want). They had moved the candy counter from the spot its been in since I was kid and set up a whole nice candy area. All the books were upstairs, including the ones that weren’t textbooks. I guess books are going out due to technology.

After that we explored the game center and played a couple of little games, and then we went and got something to eat. The boys still didn’t feel like they had gotten to have their fun, so I decided to take them to the Monte Bean Life Science Museum.

The life science museum had been renovated too. It was so much better than I remembered. They had lots of taxidermy animals, and the kids could get up close to see them. The kids were fascinated by the ones that were eating each other.

The museum even had a kids play area. It had a slide and a tunnel cave. Locke wouldn’t go in the cave because when he looked in he saw two shiny eyes and teeth. It was a stuffed bear. I had to go in with my camera light and show him it wasn’t alive. He eventually got brave enough to go inside and touch it, but Link wouldn’t. The play area also had a giant spider web and an ant farm where the kids could move ants through the tunnels with magnets.

I thought this beetle (below) was beautifully decorated. I didn’t realize that it was decorated with beetles until I got up close. (See the video.)

The Boyd K. Packer exhibit was amazing. He was an apostle who loved to make art about nature. There was artwork in the display from when he was young all the way to his most recent. The display was huge. He had done a lot of carvings, paintings, and sketching. There was also an exhibit about his life, and they even put his living room in the exhibit. I would have loved to explore it more, but the kids were restless, so I got a quick walk through. Maybe next time.

The last thing we did before leaving the museum was to check out the gift shop, which was great too! I got each of the kids one of these finger snakes. Locke had one on each finger and was wiggling them around trying them out. I wish I had got a video.