We woke to rain and lots of it. The patio outside our apartment was riddled with puddles, no one was outside around the pool, and it was chilly. So what to do when the rain in Spain has not stayed on the plain? You go to a museum (or two), of course.
The patio and area surrounding the pool.
Puddles galore!
There is a super cool butterfly museum about fifteen minutes away from the resort, the Mariposario de Benalmadena. It is a large warehouse type building (although the outside is lovely and looks like a Buddhist shrine) full of plants, amazing tropical flowers, and water features, with butterflies flying around freely. They flit around your head, they are resting on plants at everyone's eye level, and they are literally everywhere. You can see them in all their stages of life, from eggs to hatching chrysalis to soon to be dying adults. There are feeding spots all over so you can see them eating too. There were 21 different types of butterflies, and the children were absolutely enchanted with the whole experience. Quite frankly, Kent and I were too. To be able to see so many butterflies so close and learn more about their life cycles was just fantastic. In addition to the butterflies, there were different small birds flying around freely, there was a wallaby, a tortoise, and several large iguanas. Kent wondered if we should try and duplicate the museum in Utah county somewhere. And maybe we will, one day. I would love to be able to return again and again.
These are butterflies that are hatching.
We actually watched them emerge from their cocoons.
We are standing on a raised platform above the museum.
Isn't it cool!
This is a picture of the tortoise, hiding in the shrubbery.
We played "Who can spot the tortoise first?"
Nobody won. A museum worker pointed him out to us.
I am holding this very large moth.
The worker who handed it over to me, told us whether it was a boy or a girl.
I can't remember which.
Blythe is scared to hold the moth.
She wants to, but she doesn't want to at the same time.
In the end, she didn't.
Pirate's cousins, floating in the pond.
Next to the butterfly museum, and apparently part of a complex, was a very large Buddhist temple. It was beautiful. The walls were lined with interesting paintings, and unusual atonal music was playing inside. It was perched on the hill, so the view from the surrounding patio was beautiful.
Panoramic shot of the view.
This is the outside of the museum.
See that Buddhist influence?
We returned to our apartment for lunch. Feeding the children during our vacation was something of a challenge. I shopped for things we normally eat and that the children like, but oddly enough, we had a bread problem. While in Spain, Brandt was unwilling to eat a sandwich or toast because he didn't like the sliced bread we found. It wasn't like home. Today he had a fit about the bread. They were probably both hungry a good portion of our trip.
After lunch, while the rain still fell, we went to the Sea Life Aquarium in Benalmadena. This was a really fun aquarium. The children were given a quiz to complete as we wandered around looking at tanks. We especially liked an octopus that was moving all over his tank, tentacles splayed and wriggling. So cool. There was also an otter exhibit with two otters that were very active while we were there too. The children both completed their quizzes and were awarded a medal. It was Blythe's first and Brandt's second and they both wore them with pride the rest of the day.
Argh!
Because it was chilly and rainy, we didn't go to the beach today. Bummer. Instead, after being at the aquarium, we went miniature golfing at the resort. It was a hard course, made slightly more difficult by having everything soggy and the holes all full of water. The children, of course, did not care a bit, and as we aren't the sort of golfers that ever keep score, the adults didn't care a bit either.
Check out that form!
That shot is for birdie.
That shot is for birdie.
This is a fountain on the property and near where we stayed the first time we went to Spain.
It really is a lovely resort.
Andree was negatively affected by the rainy weather. She hadn't slept well and didn't feel up to coming to either the butterfly museum or the aquarium, but in the early evening, we met her for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, a buffet, she said was really good. We were somewhat dubious, but discovered it really was great. You could build your own stir-fry dishes and have them prepared for you with a sauce of your own choosing. The children like Chinese and did eat well, but they were also a bit rowdy. They wanted to play telephone which Kent and I didn't really want to do, so they were somewhat irritating. It is hard to enjoy a meal at a restaurant with young children. My father, were he still in a position to comment on this, would tell you that I am getting my just deserts because I was horrible in restaurants when I was younger. He'd tell you how we were thrown out of Brick Oven and invited never to return, thank you very much. Sometimes, cosmic justice stinks.
The Benalmadena sidewalk our restaurant was on.
I loved the large "pots" these trees were in.
I'm eating a small squid.
Both Brandt and Blythe said, "EWWWW!"
And then Blythe insisted on taking my picture.
