Butterfly Gardens

This just shows how behind in posts I am! For our last fun activity before school started, we went with some friends to Powell Gardens in Kingsville, MO. Once a year they host an event where they bring in thousands of butterflies to the Gardens and allow them to fly freely. The drive out there was absolutely gorgeous, so green and lush and farms as far as you could see.

Upon arriving, we bought our tickets and went right in to the first exhibit, an indoor garden full of different varieties of butterflies and moths. It was so HUMID in this room!

They supplied us with these handy little maps so we could put a name with each butterfly.
They came in quite handy as a fan.....
Here's Brayden discovering a garden variety monarch...

It was so peaceful and calm in this garden, the butterflies sat gently on the leaves and let us approach them. Here's a gorgeous blue morpho....

Here's the gang. Note the flushed cheeks and sweaty hairlines.....I'm telling you, it was HOT.

Hi Owen! Can you show me a butterfly?
(He was just about to point to one when I snapped this picture, notice his finger)

Close up of old Blue Morpho. We love your shiny wings.

After we left the indoor exhibit, we headed straight outside to the fountains and the kids got drenched. I don't have any good pictures of that, but I might steal them and put them up if I see them on any other blogs :)

We walked around the lake, saw the gorgeous 4 season flower beds and giant lily pads and headed back toward main building. Here we stopped at an enclosure full of monarch caterpillars and butterflies who would come right up and land on you....


After touring the harvest gardens--which were full of delicious looking fruits and veggies, we decided we'd had enough of the heat and headed for the exit. This was the final enclosure full of all different kinds of life. Here we see a tree frog and a caterpillar on two different leaves...

Brayden caught a stick bug, which he thought was super cool...

And here we have Reese pointing at something--not sure what, but she sure looks cute!