Aquarium

We were invited by some friends to go to the Aquarium. We had never been before, but it was great! I was really impressed with how well they made all of the exhibits. I only wish Ben could have gone. Hopefully we will go again soon and he can come with us!

The Three Musketeers. Getting a picture of all three of them looking at the camera AND smiling turned out to be impossible.

 Without a doubt the highlight of the day (week, month, year- you get the idea) were the mermaids. They were SO cool- I was also incredibly impressed. How do they keep their mouths open and smile and blow air bubbles AND not drown all at the same time?

 Audra insisted on wearing a nice dress because she needed to look nice for the mermaids.

 Claire looks sweet and innocent here, and for the most part she was incredibly well behaved today (thank goodness! Without Ben I was pretty worried),  BUT her mantra became: "Too scared!" Meaning, she was too scared to walk, she needed to be carried. Shockingly, she did NOT want me to carry her. It had to be the other mom who was with us. If I tried to take her, she would cry and say she was "too scared" to come to me. Thanks, Claire- I sure feel loved.

 Audra and A- they are so cute, and all three of them just love each other so much. It is really sweet.

 They have a pretend submarine with buttons and such that the kids can play with . It was a huge hit- the kids could have stayed there for an hour.

A note about the monkey backpack: This is one of those harness things with a tail so I can hold onto Claire through the exhibit. She was SOOOO excited to wear the monkey backpack- and even insisted on wearing it the rest of the day and she had to sleep with it. I took the tail off because she was doing a great job of staying with us, but she just wanted to keep wearing the monkey. It was really cute.

 The "Coral Climb"

 Can you see Audra? I thought this was great- the kids could feel like they were in the water.

 Ahhh, the best part of the day. Audra was in Heaven.

 Claire was not.

 Even outside the exhibit there were fun things for the kids to play with.

It is pretty expensive to go to the Aquarium, but I can easily see why. The exhibits are incredible, the fish are exotic, the mermaids are great- it really was neat. I was very, very impressed. This is not something we will do every week, but once every year or two would definitely be worth it. We had a great time!