Museum opening!!

A month or so ago, Sebastian constructed a life-size replica (including skeletal system and internal organs) of Lyuba, a 10,000 year old baby mammoth that was discovered frozen in Siberia almost completely intact. (You can find out more about her here.) The kids put her out in the back yard to simulate the aging that would take place when exposed to a frozen, cold environment. Well, it was only cold and frozen for a few weeks...then the snow melted and Lyuba started to deteriorate a bit more quickly than Sebastian had anticipated or wanted. On Sunday, he and Fiona excavated her out and brought her into the more stable environment of our house. Then Sebastian, like any good scientist, proceeded to do a small autopsy and take some important samples from the specimen. The above picture is of that procedure. Scarlett and Haven assisted. :)

Above are the samples that were taken, on display for the museum visitors to see.

Here's Sebastian right before he closed Lyuba back up to be able to put her on display.

Here we are at the museum opening! Haven handed Sebastian our museum "membership" card and we went in!

Here is our very first view of the museum: Lyuba on display and cave-man Elijah, who took part in an inter-active exhibit about early humans.

Here is the cave-man fire...pretty cool! Complete with a light under the tissue paper! You can see the cave in the background.

And here is the star of the show, Lyuba!

Here is Fiona, Elijah and Sequoia....cave people just would not be complete without a cave-dog! :)

Here is Scarlett checking out some of the art-work hanging on the museum wall. My favorite was the one of the giant ground sloth (megatherium) on the top right.

Sebastian loaded this empty set of drawers with interactive displays for kids. Here he showing the little girls a bone. The other drawers held the samples taken from Lyuba and some different games (what does not belong, etc) The little girls loved it! :) Brighton was a bit bummed that we wouldn't let him down to rampage and destroy the exhibits, though. :) The kids did a great job with the museum and it was fun to check it all out!