Christmas In September

Last Christmas, Grandma Candy gave us a totally awesome present...a year's membership to Clark Planetarium!  We've been so excited to use it, but just never made it into Salt Lake.  Seriously, this has been the craziest year.  But I didn't want the whole year to go by without us using our present, so a few weeks back we piled in the car and headed to the planetarium!

We were pleased to find out when we got there that the year on our membership didn't start until we actually used the Groupon, so we didn't lose any time at all!  Phew!  We each got our picture taken, including the kids, for our membership cards.  The girls thought that was so cool!  Then we got tickets to a show.  One of the perks of the membership is that we can see any of the documentary films in the IMAX 3-D theater, as well as any show in the Hansen Dome.  And to top that off, each membership card gets a free popcorn for the show!  So cool!  We got tickets for a 3-D IMAX show called "Born To Be Wild" about orphaned elephants and orangutans.

We got our popcorn and glasses, and entered the theater.  We were a few minutes late, so the previews had already begun and the theater was dark.  Claire, always the cautious one, was nervous walking in.  We led her and the other kids to our seats and then instructed them to put on their glasses.  This was during the preview for a 3-D movie called "Flying Monsters" about flying dinosaurs.  Claire put on her glasses and started balling!  Something about flying dragons coming right at her kind of freaked her out. :)  I'll admit, the 3-D took some getting used to, and was at times a little intense even for me.  Still, even weeks later, Claire is completely freaked out about dragons.  Oops. :)

The movie was adorable, and the kids really loved it.  It was only 40 minutes long, which in my opinion is the perfect amount of time for our kids to spend watching a movie in a theater.  After the movie, we decided to check out some of the planetarium exhibits.  The kids thought this was just as much fun as the movie!  Danny enjoyed it too... :)

The girls learned about telescopes and planets.

They learned about the moon's orbit around the earth...

...and a little about the Hubble Space Telescope.

But quite possibly the coolest part of the day was getting their very own membership card with their picture on it.  Thank you, Grandma Candy!