The Aquarium

I've been thinking a lot about how I miss my kids being little.  Teenagers are tough, my goodness!  I had no idea how emotionally exhausting parenting could be, I miss the physically exhausting phase.  Anyway, I realized that one of the things I miss is my kids wanting to do things together.  When Caitlyn and Jonah were young we were always out doing something fun.  We had a zoo pass and there was always some free activity going on.  It was so great when they were so excited about everything and happy to do family activities.  I realized that Wyatt and Hallee are still at that stage so I decided we should get a pass somewhere, especially since they are only in school 10 hours a week.

Wyatt is obsessed with penguins and Hallee loves sloths, so we decided the aquarium would be a good fit.  On Labor Day weekend we all went to check it out.  The older kids enjoyed it too, I don't think they will want to go back very often, but they did enjoy it.

Wyatt was so excited about seeing penguins.

Keith was excited about going too, he loves animals.

We all loved looking at the sharks.

This was my favorite fish tank, the colors were amazing!

The lion fish in the corner was neat.

We all loved the giant tunnel where fish were swimming around you and over you.  There were sharks, turtles, sting rays and a bunch of other fish.

I caught a picture of a sting ray above us.  It is so weird to see their face on the bottom.

Here is one of the sharks.  I think they had five or six in this area.

Wyatt was so excited when we finally made our way to the penguins.  

All the penguins were doing different things.  This one made me laugh.  I wanted to tell the penguin, "I feel ya buddy!"

Another penguin kept flapping his wings.

There was a viewing area so we were able to stay and watch the penguins for a while.

I think Wyatt could have stayed here all day.

I took Hallee and Wyatt back on Friday and we saw a penguin swimming for a while.  It was so fun to watch him glide through the water.

Wyatt and Hallee brought their phones so they could take pictures and videos of the animals.

The alligator was kind of creepy!

Hallee and Wyatt were dying to go back to the aquarium so we went on Friday.  It was nice to not have the crowds that we had the last time we went.

We haven't had luck seeing the sloth yet, but Hallee enjoys all of the other animals.

The sea turtles are fun to watch.

The otters were in and out of the water.  We loved watching them swim.  They glide through the water and turn upside while they swim.  It's so fun to watch them.  Hallee and Wyatt are already asking to go back, I think we will get a lot of use out of this pass.