Aquarium

Jeff and I decided to take the kids to the Newport Aquarium - and yes, the date on the pictures is correct! We went down on a Saturday with Allie, Ceara, Conor, and Kaitlyn. On the way down, Jeff tortured, or uh.. enlightened the kids by having them listen to a book on CD. When he put the CD in, the kids responded by saying, "Uh! Can't we listen to music?? We don't want to listen to this!" But, thinking they would eventually start liking it, Jeff did not give into their requests.

Once we arrived at the Aquarium, we had to walk a bit to get there. This activity was met with, "My legs are tired, I don't feel good, blah, blah, blah..." But yet, take em to a mall to shop and they can walk forever to all their favorite stores. They are such pleasant children to take places! ;)

Since we purchased our tickets at Kroger before going, we did not have to wait in the long line that had formed outside. Anyway, it was shark time. We walked throughout the Aquarium amongst a huge crowd of people. Conor was excited to see them all and he loved looking in each glass enclosure and trying to find what was pictured on the little plaque.

He also would make very strange faces whenever he saw me taking a picture. Quite the little comedian.

They also had a place where you could pay $1 to get a little plastic cup of nectar so that the birds could poke a hole in the bottom of the cup with their beaks when trying to get a drink. Then all the nectar you just bought just poured onto the ground. They must have already been full for the most part, though, because one bird I was holding simply put his beak in the nectar, sucked a little up, and then shook his head around, spraying us with the nectar. Such lovely birds. One even peed on my head as I walked under him. Joy. It was certainly nothing like the experience we had at Kentucky Down Under. The birds at the aquarium did not get excited when we came in the room, and we had to coax them onto our hands to have them spit their food we just bought them all over us.

And Allie was a bit more afraid of these birds. Maybe it was their beady little eyes. Or the fact that they spit and peed on us. But, it was fun anyway. :)

Conor was keeping a close eye on his bird - I'm not sure what he thought it would do...

The alligators and turtles are obviously good friends. :)

Allie had to make sure she didn't miss any important messages from her friends while we were there..

In this picture, we were waiting in line to see the shark movie they were showing. So, Conor had to do some more of his funny poses. lol

While he so wanted to touch one of the crabs, he was so afraid to. They weren't exactly the cute, puppy type want-to-pet-kind of creature. What with their huge shells and spidery legs coming out from under them..

He did, however, try to pet the sharks in these pictures. But his arm was too short, and he was not able to touch them. I got to, though, and the black one swimming above was rather slimy feeling, and there was another one sleeping on the edge that felt like sand paper. It was very interesting to touch them.

And of course, on the way out of the aquarium, you have to go through the gift shop. Every parents favorite place to go to waste money on some souvenir-type toy that will be found under the couch, long forgotten a few months later. We actually got through without buying anything, but then Kaitlyn walked out with a stuffed animal that her dad had given her money for, and Conor so wanted a shark... so. We now have a stuffed shark to add to his already too large collection of stuffed animals.

It was a fun day, but by the end of it I was worn out. :)