Night at the Museum is possibly one of the best family movies of all time. I know we loved it, at least, and were super excited when my parents, sister and I got to visit the Museum of Natural History in New York again and look for all our favorite characters.

I was surprised to find that all the displays aren’t exactly like the scenes from the movie. I guess I had mingled my real-life experiences from ten years ago with the footage from the film. We did find a few of the characters, though, and the rest of the museum was way better and bigger than I recall.

It’s amazing how much you think you know until you come into a museum like this. I’ve spent so much time in my life reading about different location and cultures, and still I learn tons of new and novel things every time I visit a museum.

It was especially interesting to me to learn about the history and culture of the Masai and other Nilotic or Bantu tribes in the Tanzania/Burundi/Kenya area of Africa, since that is where Ben grew up.

The South American exhibit was also fun to walk through. There were so many terra cotta statues, like this dog. It’s pretty cute…. for a chihuahua.

The ocean exhibit was also cool. Last time we were here, we missed it because we ran out of time. This time, we took our time through it. Even though I took marine biology in high school, I’ve become so much more educated on ocean life since I live near one. I recognized a lot of the creatures in the exhibits.

It’s tough for me to pick and choose which photos to feature and which displays to highlight; I guess if you want to see them, you’ll have to go check it out for yourself! It’s well worth spending a few hours at the Museum of Natural History.