The Butterfly Place

To celebrate our four girlies' birthdays this spring, we took a trip to The Butterfly Place in Massachusettes.

While we were expecting a larger facility, we did enjoy the varying species of butterflies in the garden.

Walking into the garden, we hit a wall of heat and humidity. It was an adjustment for us and the camera, but it felt good to stroll through the tropics for a bit. :-)

We bought a colorful chart listing the species of butterflies found in the garden for $1 at our arrival. That was great fun and a helpful tool in making our visit more meaningful.  The highlight of the trip was having a butterfly land on you. I laughed a few times watching the children hold perfectly still waiting and hoping to blend in with the scenery enough to be mistaken as a butterfly perch. ;-)

Along with the plants and butterflies, there were a couple odd breeds of birds that caught our attention near the very smally coy pond.  We had to stretch a bit to see the fish and find the birds.

Once we left the garden, we strolled along a few exhibits set up to show the various stages of the butterfly life cycle. I was glad I had done a butterfly unit with the girls over the last couple of months in our school time. It made everything we saw more meaningful and kept their attention.

Overall, I don't think we'd return to The Butterfly Place again.  While we did enjoy seeing the garden and it was a neat feeling to have all of the lovely insects floating around us, I was expecting a bit more for the time and money we spent. The garden was quite small. Even though the facility wasn't particularly busy, we still felt we were "in the way" no matter where we stood on the path. The building itself needs quite a bit of updating as do some of the exhibits and the media room. I'm hopeful that the money we did spend (even with the homeschool discount) will go towards the needed upgrades to help make the building and all that it holds as lovely as the website promotes. I will say the staff were extremely friendly, welcoming, and helpful. The little gift shop was enjoyable and we found a couple treasures to remember our visit.

The girls had a lovely day, however, and greatly enjoyed our visit. (even though Ruth is being grumpy for the camera) For that reason, alone, I call our trip successful.