At the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum

It was an air-conditioned break from Florida's late-April sun, and so fun! A docent approached the girls as we wandered the exhibits--

--and led them on a private scavenger hunt, showing them how to find the entire alphabet on an alphabet shell, and teaching them to identify fig shells, and banded shells, and the treasured junonia. Finally, he bestowed upon them pencils, coloring books, and stickers! The girls were thrilled.

Willow shows off her skill in identifying most of the shells seen here. How many do you know?

We watched a super-dry but nevertheless fascinating documentary on mollusks, and spent loads of time kneeling down over the shallow live mollusk tank, our noses nearly touching the water, watching mollusks slowly do fabulous things:

The girls loved every part of the museum absolutely, but of course you know what my favorite part was, right?

Shell crafts!

Modern sailor's valentines:

And antique ones:

And another D.I.Y. sailor's valentine kit purchased in the gift shop to take home with me and try.

Oh, wait...the girls did have a favorite part of the museum, actually:

Hence the sight that I happened to spy that night, a few minutes after bedtime:

Treasure, indeed.