Fun Day in Palo Alto!

I have a New Year's resolution to do more fun things with Cal. On Saturday, we decided to take a family day trip to the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the excursion turned out wonderfully! We met up with Aunt Heather, and the four of us had a total blast.

The first things we saw when entered the little museum were these kinetic machines. The kids could grab tennis balls from the ground and send it through the machines by cranking knobs and turning wheels. Cal LOVED it! Here he is, dragging Daddy along:

There was a wind turbine where you could rearrange the parts to see what the most efficient use of wind energy would be (yes, this is Palo Alto):

Cal loved pushing the yellow "Wind" button and getting blasted with wind:
Next, we went to the bug exhibit. All the windows were toddler-height, so we adults had to crouch down on our knees to see. I think Cal was excited to have everything at his level!

This was the water-energy machine:

Tesla sphere:

At the butterfly cabinet, Cal would hide inside and then pop out like a jack-in-the-box. EVERY picture I tried to snap of this was blurry. Luckily, Heather got one shot:

More bugs:

After the museum, we headed outside to the tiny zoo. It was really cute! Can you see the python in the photo below?

There was a gorgeous, neon pheasant in this cage, but you can barely see it from my photo:
Cal was very interested, and asked for the car keys so he could unlock the door. This is a picture of us explaining that our keys wouldn't work:
All those animals, and of course Cal's favorite thing to do was to watch the ducks:


They had a little observation hole for the badger pen:
Look at this face:

Mommy doesn't like geese, but Cal was very interested.

We finished up at the zoo, but our fun day did not stop there. The four of us went back to Heather's house to pick up Winnie, then walked over to the playground nearby.

Winnie dug in the sandbox for about 20 minutes straight:

We ended the day with a trip to "the Melt", a grilled cheese sandwich restaurant. It was perfect for a cold, kinda drizzly night.
What a fantastic way to spend a Saturday! I am so glad to have found another activity that Cal loved.