Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Memorial Day at the Aquarium

Charlton had Memorial Day off and it was fabulous to have him to ourselves for three days.  Monday we spent the morning at the aquarium downtown; Steven had a ball!  I have to admit that it's not that impressive if it's just adults and you are going for some serious study, but it is perfect for kids.  We started outside (so that we could enjoy it before the temp hit 95), and went on the shark exhibit train ride.  We swapped camera duty with another family of three to get this family photo.  Steven wasn't that impressed with the train though I do love the cool guy smirk he's got on his face in this picture.  It was pretty short and it takes you though a building with the shark aquarium all above you.  It was cool but too hard for Steven to see-- we kept pointing and telling him to look up but he just kept looking around like, "I don't see anything-- this is lame."
On the end of the ride, you pass this JAWS set up which all the adults kind of laughed at.  We were talking about how fake it looks, when a blast of water shoots up and there's a very loud BANG!  I jumped about a foot in the air and then we died laughing because it was so bad but it still scared me.
Steven with Dad on the Ferris wheel.
Steven loved watching the fish.  I've been showing him fish in books and trying to get him to say the word and recognize them but he didn't get it until he saw them live.  At each tank he would point and say "fish" a dozen times.  He watched these Goliath Groupers for a while- they were easy for him to see.  I was so happy that my fun trip also turned out to be very educational.

Steven is touching a starfish.  His arms were too short to touch the stingrays and other fish at the bottom- notice the wet sleeve- so the girl that worked the exhibit came over and picked it up for him to touch.
They have a white tiger exhibit inside with the aquarium- don't ask me how they fit in with the fish?!  We have never seen a tiger exhibit that is glassed in and you can be face to face with the cats.  Steven loved it and was running back and forth following the tiger.  It was pretty amazing how close we were to him.  

5 comments:

Blogahon said...

Great pics! We haven't taken Hattie to the aquarium yet, but after seeing this post, it's on our to do list for the summer.

Anonymous said...

Those are wonderful pictures of all of you. That looked like a fun trip.
Love,
Mimi

~the ten of us~ said...

Looks like lots of fun !!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting! Great idea for a family outing in Houston. Looks like Madison and I will need to visit Mark for lunch or dinner one day at the downtown aquarium.
Last time we went to the acqu., there wasn't a white tiger exhibit. How cool is that to be so close to them!

Julee Casey said...

Charlotte went there when she was 3 days old!! It looks like Steven is actually touching that tiger!! Great camera and photographer!!