Desert Botanical Garden Butterfly Pavilion

Every year, the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix exhibits butterflies from around the country in their "butterfly pavilion," which is essentially a large tent with lots of flowers growing inside, and lots of different types of butterflies and moths fluttering around. If you have an insect phobia, you should not attend this event. If you think butterflies and luna moths are awesome, beautiful, and very cool, it is not to be missed.

I took the kids to it twice this year. They had a blast. The first time we went, my daughter had a grand time looking at all the butterflies and comparing them to the identification chart. My son didn't care so much about which kind was which, but a butterfly landed on the butterfly identification card they had given him, and he was fascinated. He gave it a "ride" and then encouraged it to walk off the pretend "elevator" onto a flower. He named the butterfly, and when we went back a couple of weeks later, he walked around looking for "his" butterfly, and calling its name. He found it (or one that looked like it) and was soooo happy.

Meanwhile on the second trip, my daughter (age 10) snagged my camera and had a blast taking photos. I didn't expect much -- thought we'd end up with a lot of blurry photos of butterflies in the distance -- but she was having fun and I was busy keeping my little guy out of trouble, so I didn't wrest the camera from her happy little hands. I just let her go for it. As it turned out, she took some darn good photographs - probably better than I would have done!

Here are just a few of the photos she took:

I made some note cards and other items from some of the photos at her Zazzle gallery, at http://www.zazzle.com/coolpuppies*. I'll add more when I find the time. Check it out if you are interested.

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