Dinosaur Weekend is finally here!
I feel like my whole life has been leading up to THIS moment.
My mom says my first love in life was dinosaurs (but don’t tell my wife that). Ever since I was the littlest of kids, I’ve loved dinosaurs. LOVED THEM.
I wanted to be a palaeontologist for most of my life. In between visiting the ROM (always seeing the dinosaurs before anything else) and reading books about dinosaurs, I played with dinosaur action figures, watched Jurassic Park every week and lived for the idea of eventually going searching, digging, and studying dinosaurs when I grew up.
I remember meeting Robert T. Bakker and Phil Currie when I was a kid and feeling like I’d met rock stars. (Ok, forget about being a kid, when I met Dave Evans a few years back I’m pretty sure I peed my pants a bit). I remember the best vacation of my LIFE was being a seven year old in the Badlands of Drumheller Alberta, spending a week seeing actual dig sites and exploring the Royal Tyrrell Museum (a museum all about dinosaurs).
So in short, dinosaurs mean a lot to me.
As I grew up, though my passion for dinosaurs never waned, my dreams of becoming a palaeontologist quickly changed when I realized math was not one of my strong points. (Who knew palaeontologists use a lot of math!?) HOWEVER, this story has a happy ending. I realized I could infuse my love of dinosaurs in a new capacity that was even more awesome – working with kids. So, education and children’s programming became my career focus.
Where I’m going with this…
Remember I said I feel like my whole life’s been leading up to this moment?
I get to help organize a dinosaur-centred weekend at the very museum I was astonished by as a kid! (Holy wow – amazing stuff.) And I’m so excited that I have the opportunity to share this stuff with kids who are just like I was!
We’ve spent a bunch of time with the great folks in the ROM Palaeontology department to bring out some truly awe-inspiring stuff for Dinosaur Weekend:
- We’ve got casts and real fossils for you to see and explore – some that you can even touch!
- Real-life palaeontologists will greet you on the floor (#museumheroes) who will talk to you about their work and answer all your dinosaur-related questions. They will also be offering a special look at a mini fossil preparation lab – you’ll be able to see how palaeontologists prepare fossils and mould and cast them for display.
- We’re also giving y’all a sneak peek of our upcoming Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit. From the skeleton of an Eoraptor (the most primitive known dinosaur) to a Elosuchus skull (a Cretaceous crocodile), to what may even be the femur of a Spinosaurus, you’ll see some dinosaurs, and other Mesozoic beasts, before they go on display this Summer!
- Of course, we’ll be brining the dinosaur dig out for all the young fossil hunters.
- Super fun: we’re setting up a station where you can make Hadrosaur headdresses that will ensure you won’t look out of a place in a herd of duckbilled dinosaurs!
- We’ll even have some dinosaur foot prints out in dinosaurs where you can measure the size of your sneakers to the claws of a Carnotaurus. Toooooooo legit.
So come out! Join us! Let’s talk about dinosaurs!
Upcoming Family Fun Weekends 2012 to watch for…
April 28-29: Dinosaur Weekend
May 5-6: Space Weekend
May 12-13: Ancient Egypt Weekend
May 19-21: Awesome Animals Weekend
June 9-10: Ancient Rome and Greece Weekend
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