Friday, April 26, 2013

Parco Monte Serra: Casa delle Farfalle

My friend Bethany and I have recently created a "day-trips with kiddos" bucket list of some pre-baby and pre-moving adventures that we'd like to share in the coming months.  With a free Friday at our disposal we loaded up our mini-vans (which also had room for the Garber trio) and had the chance to check one thing off the list (though quite possibly we'll be back a time or two before the end of the summer!)  We drove about 30 minutes to the north to Parco Monte Serra - which is home to a lovely "House of Butterflies" exhibit.  With our picnics packed and our pre-school crowd of 7 (including Elise who had off from school today) we began our adventure.  We started off with some playground fun before making our way to the Casa delle Farfalle.  Here's what we found inside:


They had the butterflies grouped by the ways they defend themselves against predators.  The kids were fascinated with the poisonous varieties and by the species with unique camouflaging (in particular the "cobra moth" and another butterfly with markings that mimicked the eyes of an owl)
So excited to have a butterfly land on her shoulder!
Sweet, sweet friends!  Our best attempt at getting them to smile and look at the same time...well, sort of!
Looking for trouble...and wanting to catch some fish!
I think we all gasped when we walked through the curtains into the butterfly house.  It was warm and fragrant and delightfully cheery with all the beautiful varieties of butterflies fluttering around us. 
We learned a lot, too...Here's the life cycle of the silk moth - live!

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