One of our dinosaurs is missing

For nearly a year I have been thinking about taking the boys to London to visit some of the big museum's, but for one reason or another it just hasn't happened. That is until today when we finally after Brandon's football club we made a fairly spontaneous drive into London to visit the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. We were accompanied by my brother, Lea and my Mum and had a great day out, but a very tiring day.

 

Upon arrival we stopped in the cafe first for a spot of lunch before embarking upon our dinosaur hunt.



Dippy the Diplodicus greats you in the central hall, This so looks like a scene from "Night at the Museum".

Brandon having his picture taken with Dippy.

There were two great advantages to having my Mum with us today. First we got to use the disabled parking which was right outside the museum entrance, Then secondly we got to jump the queue to get into the dinosaur exhibit and probably saved a good 15 to 20 mins out of our day. 

My two boys with their maps of the museum in hand ready to explore the dinosaur museum.

One of my favourites - the triceratops.

Joshua and Brandon with a baby triceratops.

A great picture of a dinosaur skull.

Another impressive skeleton of the plated stegosaurus.

The main attraction by far is the animatronic T-rex which Joshua initially thought was real. Brandon held back and stayed very close to Tina clinging to her leg scared at first despite us telling him that all the dinosaurs were pretend and died millions and millions of years ago. 

The life size animatronic T-rex.

Me, Josh and a fearsome looking dinosaur head.

After the dinosaur section we headed over to the mammal section as I was keen to show the boys the giant blue whale. It is amazing how much the museum seems to have changed since I last visited (but then that was probably about 30 years ago on a school trip!). 

Joshua and Brandon with a giant polar bear. Brandon was asking me the name of every single animal as we walked around the exhibit.

The blue hall with the giant blue whale. I think this picture is quite unusual having the blue whale, a skeleton and a rhino in the same shot.

Joshua borrowed my camera as he wanted to take a picture of this horned beast.

My two boys with a hippo.

A view looking down the blue hall, very impressive.

The back end of the blue hall and all the dolphins.

They are all mammals but is seems weird to me seeing a elephant skeleton with whale skeletons.

Me, Joshua and the blue whale.

Me, Brandon and the blue whale.



All of us in the central hall having our picture taken with Dippy.

After seeing all of the major exhibits that we wanted to look at in the Natural History Museum we decided to head next door and make the most of our time by also visiting the Science Museum.  For me the Science Museum is a pretty amazing place with lots of old cars, planes, trains, space ships and loads of interactive learning activities for both children and adults. I could spend a lot more time waling around the Science Museum and learning about some of the stuff, but thats not what the boys are interested in at their age.

A replica of the Apollo space ship.

Joshua with one of the first ever steam trains from the 1800's.

Brandon climbing on board an old steam engine.

Bizarrely six full size cars stacked up against a wall.

The boys nanny practising her driving in a cut open Mini. We wont tell her the steering wheel is on the other side!

Joshua taking a look in the engine.

 

Brandon learning all about one of the all time classics, the Model T.

 

The boys were totally shattered after the long day walking around the Museums. Brandon used the buggy a little, but Joshua walked the whole day and must have covered a good few miles. Needless to say both boys were very quiet in the car on the way home and had a good little power nap. The traffic coming out of London was pretty bad with a few road closures to made the journey that bit more challenging. However on the plus side we had a very scenic journey taking in sites such as Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Wellington, Harrods, Westminster, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London to name but a few.