Thursday, July 9th - Butterfly House and New Camera

The Butterfly House is a part of the Missouri Botanical Garden but is actually located in Faust Park in Chesterfield. Since I have a family membership to the Garden (a FABULOUS gift from mom and dad Tiemeier for my birthday last year), I get passes to the Butterfly House. So, today we went to the Butterfly House with my friend Krista and her great kids (Caleb, Joseph, Aiden and sweet Ellie). We got there around 9:30am and since it was not too hot and humid yet, we let the kids play on the great playground in the park before heading over to see the butterflies. They have a great playground there with a rubber mat instead of rocks or sand and lots of slides and different things to climb on. They even have one section that is built smaller and shorter and is reserved for kids 2-4 years old.


Once at the Butterfly House, we went into the room where all the butterflies are. It is like being in a tropical forest. The air is warm and humid and there are tropical plants with a rock path winding through the room. There are butterflies flying around everywhere! It was a bit overwhelming for the kids at first but then they got used to it. It is amazing to see all of the beautiful colors and unique designs on the butterflies. Again, no camera but below are some pictures from when we were there a few months ago with my sister Kendra.

Some of the beautiful tropical flowers!

Beautiful orange and brown butterfly.
This butterfly's wings are supposed to look like owl eyes so that it can be camoflauged from it's prey. I don't know what butterfly prey is but this must be effective!

After seeing the butterflies and watching a short movie on the life cycle of butterflies, we headed back to our house for an indoor picnic lunch (it was just too hot and humid outside for the babies). The kids loved getting to pick out a towel and set things up in the living room. All in all, we had a great time and after all that excitement, Cora took a great nap!


When Brian got home, he told me that the package that had arrived from Amazon that day for him was actually for me. It was my camera!! I got a red Sony Cyber-shot and from what I can tell, I am going to love it! (The battery is charging so I won't be able to play around with it tonight.) It has a lot of great features but the one I am most interested in trying out is the Smile Shutter. In this setting, you press the shutter but the camera only takes a picture when it detects a smile!