{Spring Break} Jumping for Jackson

To round out our state capital visits, we hit Mississippi's own, Jackson, today.  Believe it or not, it was my first visit.  Though I'd been up to Cleveland, MS (a small town equal distance from Jackson and Memphis, TN, but further west near the Arkansas line) once several years ago to visit my cousin and her family, every single one of my Mississippi visits have been to the coast...

Though we weren't there very long, I really liked what I did see of Jackson.  Our first stop was the Mississippi State Capitol building where the littles all ran to the top of the stairs (our customary thing now)...

and took a photo out in front, too...



not leaving without the "silly shot"...

Oh, they are such little messes...

From the capitol building, we stopped for lunch at nearby Brent's Drugs, at the recommendation of one of my Greenville friends that grew up in that area...

After fueling up, we were ready to spend the afternoon exploring the Mississippi Children's Museum...

Wow, what a treat!

When we walked in, the littles were less than impressed as it looked as if we could see the whole museum from the front desk, but there were all sorts of great exhibits hidden everywhere...truly a surprise around every corner, and on multiple levels!  I also really loved that there was a lot for the children to do, but whenever possible the exhibits were built around or intertwined with information about Mississippi.

The top floor consisted of administrative space, the café, the gift shop and the World at Work exhibit...

We explored all different types of energy...

 

how to fuel and drive a car...

{L L-O-V-E-D this}

working (& playing) on a farm...

clearing logs in the forest...

 

and learning more about the great state of Mississippi while driving cars and trains...

{I seriously LOVED this table.  It was shaped like the state of Mississippi and included the interstates and landmarks like the capitol building and Beauvoir in Biloxi.}

From there, we walked down to a mid-level (it was kind of wedged between the top and bottom levels in the middle of the museum) that featured the start of the Exploring Mississippi exhibit (that was really on 3 levels itself!)...

where we...

climbed in the capitol building (it worked out well that we had just visited this morning)...

learned new facts...

and spent most of our time on the large riverboat climbing structure with entrances and exits on all 3 levels of this exhibit...

We excavated fossils...

played in the Mississippi River...



and constructed and  raced our riverboats...

before going underground...

From there, we headed over to the Wild About Reading! exhibit...

where we read books, built puzzles and dressed up like knights in the Between the Lions library...

 

 

and dressed up again to play with puppets in the Readers' Theater area...

before visiting the Healthy Fun! exhibit...

Here, we exercised with a skeleton...

{Leave it to M to strike up a conversation with him.}

shopped in the Farmer's Market (and learned a little more about our favorite fruits and vegetables)...

and spent most of our time playing in the Gastro Climber...

 

We finished up in the Express Yourself! exhibit...

where we gave a few really great performances dancing and singing...

and watching ourselves on the monitor!

 

The absolute best was L's (and her sidekick, Cow, mooing along in tune) rendition of "Go Tell It on the Mountain"...

Oh, we had so much fun ~ could've stayed there all day long, and then some...  We hadn't even gotten to the car and the littles were asking to go back and visit again...  Hopefully, soon...

We headed back to the coast to meet back up with Grandma and grab an early dinner before visiting some more with my grandmother...

With that, part one of our Spring Break has come to a close, and we are headed back home tomorrow.  Looking forward to reuniting with Hubby and switching gears for the second half of the week...

{Spring Break} A Little Louisiana

We dipped into Louisiana for the day and really covered a lot of ground!

We left the hotel pretty early with my mother in tow and stopped at the site of the Dixie White House on the way out.  Now rebuilt a couple of times after both Camille and Katrina, it isn't the original home, but President Woodrow Wilson was said to have spent some time here in Pass Christian...

After that brief stop, we crossed over into good old Louisiana...

and set off to make a stop at the Louisiana State Capitol building in Baton Rouge - or "Red Stick" as B is now continuously calling it!  Unfortunately, I didn't notice until our second stop that my camera setting had been bumped and all of our photos from there are blurry...  Oh well, an excuse to go back and visit again, I suppose...

Regardless of the photo quality, the Louisiana State Capitol building is quite different and unique looking in comparison to the other ones nearby including Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi...

The art deco structure is the tallest of the U.S. State Capitol buildings...

We really liked seeing the states listed step by step.  Below is B sitting on the South Carolina step, not that you can tell!

Before moving on, we just had to find the little plaque commemorating President Zachary Taylor and one of his residences that once stood nearby...

 

Now, on our way in we noticed a little dive of a restaurant called Frostop with a big figural rootbeer mug sign outside.  With B's most favorite treat being rootbeer and the "Rootbeer Walks" he looks forward to taking with Hubby once a week in both the spring and summer, we knew that we just had to stop in for lunch.

It honestly wasn't half bad...  It was definitely a dive, but the free refills of rootbeer sealed the deal...

With bellies full of rootbeer, we made our way back over to New Orleans, thankful that the rain had held off for most of the morning.

Once we got to town, it was a different story...  Awful downpours and storms...

We left Grandma in the car to rest and headed in to explore the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium, a spot that had actually been on my list of things to do the last time that we were in town...

In my opinion, it was just a little pricey, but the littles surely enjoyed it.

We observed and learned about several insects through a variety of different exhibits...

We were all four fascinated taking in the leafcutter ant exhibit ~ it was awesome to watch them (so closely) carry pieces of both leaves and flowers in a perfect line with such precision...

The littles loved the underground exhibit that I found to be just a little creepy...

We all loved climbing in the appropriately named, "Love Bug", to learn more about just that ~ love bugs!

From there, my brave little B seized the opportunity (if that's what you would call it?) to taste (ewww!) bugs...  I can't believe that he actually did it, and I really can't believe that he actually liked it and ate 6 pieces of the Cinnamon Bug Crunch!

Though we had seen something very similar during our most recent visit to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, seeing the different stages of a butterfly first-hand never seems to get old...

My own little M's favorite area by far was the butterfly garden ~ she was really in her element while in there amongst the fluttering butterflies... 

She just sat there happy as a clam with them all around her...

"Hi butterflies!  You are my friends!  I love you butterflies!  Do you like my dress (with butterflies, of course)?  I love you!"

She even tried consoling her big sister.  "They won't hurt you.  They are my friends.  This one is Cindy.  Cindy, how are you today?  I love you!"

You see, L is ever my cautious one and isn't really too keen on anything where she doesn't feel fully in control of the situation.  She loves butterflies, but doesn't really want them too close to her and certainly doesn't want them landing on her...

M, on the other hand, would want nothing more than the whole room full of butterflies to follow her around...

Yep, that's my little "Butterfly Whisperer"...

She really would've sat there for hours...

Instead, she had to say goodbye to her new friend, Cindy...

Oh, I wish I had recorded her conversations...priceless...

...and, Cindy???  Where in the world did she come up with that name?

Oh, the joys... 

After making sure we had no butterfly friends trying to hitch a ride out of there on our clothes, we reunited with my mother and drove out to Uptown to grab a quick dinner and check on my uncle's old house...  We ended up driving around in circles trying to wait out the torrential downpour before finding his house right where he left it (of course) all those years ago, on General Pershing Street...

Once the rain subsided a bit, we headed back out of town and back to Mississippi to turn in for the night... 

One last adventure tomorrow...