Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Real Pirates!

Last Wednesday, thanks to the organizing powers of a fellow homeschooling mom, we caught the tail end of a fabulous exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural History: Real Pirates, by National Geographic. If Real Pirates reaches your hemisphere any time soon (it's on its way to the Field Museum in Chicago right now), I strongly advise that you get thee thence.

I actually had a whole post written about the history of the Whydah and how pirate ships were  the world's only racial melting pots during the 1700's and how we got to touch real, live pieces of eight that had been touched by real, live pirates who probably had never washed their hands or heard of Purell ... and then I accidentally deleted the whole caboodle.

Go me!

And I'm too tired to rewrite it. But just trust me, this was history coming alive in the truest form you can get without actually diving down to the wreck or stepping into a time capsule.


As a cherry on top, I scored a bunch of educational pirate books for $.92 at the gift shop because the exhibit was on its way out.

Even without the Pirates exhibit, the museum's worth a day's gander. We finished up at the museum's Cockrell Butterfly Center.



That's not fright, folks. It's pure, unadulterated wonder. 

Probably reflecting the look on her mother's face. 

2 comments:

em said...

First of all, O my! Your kids have grown! I really need to get back to Texas... perhaps they have forgotten me?!

Awh, I LOVE Caroline's wonderment face. Scratch that, I ADORE it!! And it's true, those butterflies REALLY are beautiful.

And, I WILL go see the Pirates if they come our way.

Vanessa said...

Two things I love about these photos:

1) How Caroline seems so happy in the lap of a pirates as Ian and Eliza do their best to look like they are really with pirates!
2) Caroline's look of wonder in her eyes in that last photo! You captured it Hannah!

yay for field trips!