The morning after the zoo was a little rough as Mom and Zach had to be out of the hotel room before Kye even needed to be awake so he ended up waking up early…which had me stressing. With no nap the day before and waking up early I was a bit nervous about going to the aquarium. We ate our (yummy) free breakfast in the lobby then headed to the aquarium to be some of the first people in line for the day.
Carrying in his ticket!
Mrs. Charlotte and gang had to drive to drop off Casey with her friends for the weekend so they were going to meet us there. Talk about brave…Courtney checked out of her hotel room and drove straight home after the aquarium!!! No way would I attempt that!
I realized on our visit that I’m simply not an aquarium person. Zoos are waaaaaay cooler to me. A fish is a fish is a fish. It got kinda boring. At the zoo you can make the animal sounds and feel like you can touch them since you are looking at them over a fence…at the aquarium you’re always looking behind glass and really what fish sounds can you make? Maybe it’s because I have a son, it seems like everyone I know that has a daughter loves the aquarium. Maybe it’s not interactive enough to keep a boys attention or something? He did enjoy it…at least most of the time 😉
I remember from past visits that the aquarium is quite chilly so I tried to dress a little warmer!
I also wore my Rachel Necklace, Soiree Pave Bracelets and Vintage Twist Bracelet
Lorelai LOVED it there!
seahorses
I let Kye walk majority of the time, he was racing to see the fish
We could have probably stayed at that spot for the entire day, Kye was mesmerized
buddies
he thought the little fact stations were some computers
Mrs. Charlotte, Courtney, Colt and Payton caught up with us by the time we were about done with the first section (there are like 4 or 5 sections of the aquarium) so, again, timing worked out great!
Notice how tall Lorelai is!
Payton
Colt
trying to get them all to hold hands, Lorelai wasn’t quite feeling it though
My favorite part of the morning was riding through the tunnel because it was HILARIOUS to see the kids straining their necks to see everything. I was laughing out loud watching them.
When we knew we’d be coming to the aquarium I tried my best to make it sound super cool and to get Kye excited for it…it was tough for me to think of the animals we could talk about that he’d actually know so I focused on sharks. I made sharks the coolest animal ever and Kye was pretty excited when we saw some of them! However, he’s also scared of sharks b/c in Nemo 
the shark scene is kinda intense…so he didn’t leave that day begging to see another shark or anything.
Taking a potty break ~ me and Courtney!
I love Kye’s excited smile
On my first trip to the aquarium I really loved the big white whales (are they belugas? I have no clue!) especially because we watched them mate. At this point in the morning Kye’s lack of sleep and somewhat boredom was starting to become an issue. He decided he didn’t care anymore and all he wanted me to do was push him in the stroller so he could eat his snacks. I didn’t have very many snacks with me because they have strict rules about outside food and I was scared it’d get taken away so I didn’t bring my usual amount. He ended up killing everything I had and ate a whole banana that someone else had snuck in!
at least Lorelai enjoyed it 😉
Even when we got to the penguin part, which is one of the biggest crowd pleasers, Kye didn’t want anything to do with them. I was fine with it, as we learned during our putt-putt outing in St. Augustine, it’s best just to roll with things when dealing with a toddler. I just parked the stroller and let him eat his snacks and offered to watch other people’s stuff so they could do the penguin tunnel thing.
Lorelai LOVED the penguins but especially the otters – she was adorable!
the two girls 🙂
I’ve ALWAYS been an animal lover and have always enjoyed touchin’ stuff and my favorite thing about the aquarium is all the places you get to feel the animals. It’s funny b/c as an adult I’ve become less about touching stuff. Yesterday, for example, I spent a good 20 min rescuing a fat frog from our pool when I could have just picked him up in like 5 seconds…but I really didn’t want to touch him. So not like me! I may not touch frogs anymore but I’m still down to touch random sea animals 😉
Poor Kye…his arms weren’t long enough to reach so my pregnant belly was stretching as far as possible to get his little hands in the water
Kye’s favorite thing of the day was a play area crawl through tunnel where he could see me through a tank of fish. He did it over and over and over and over and we had a tough time pulling him and Colt away. No fits or anything, they just reallllly liked it!
Another favorite was the souvenir penny maker machine. It has a big wheel on it and Kye thought he was driving. He actually skipped touching a lot of the animals in order to continue to “drive” the machine. Whatever makes him happy right?
G-Mama coaxed him away long enough to try to touch a baby shark…but again those short arms prevented it from happening!
We mapped out the morning similar to how we did the zoo, we tried to end on the most interactive area to prevent any behavioral issues. By the time we reached the play area we were READY for it. The kids were antsy and we thought it’d be a great way to burn off steam. Welllll the play area is actually for older kids and our kids were all too young/little to play! Kinda frustrating. At least they had this boat that the boys could pretend to drive. It DID result in a spanking situation for Kye though.
Earlier in the morning Colt had a little issue because he didn’t want to leave the penguins. When Kye started acting up I warned him that I’d spank him just like Courtney did Colt if needed. We said goodbye to the boat and left the area and he turned and ran from me to go back to it. Nope. Not my kid! I let Robyn watch my stuff and took Kye to the bathroom and spanked him in the stall. I don’t agree with spanking in public and I always carry my spank stick (a paint stick) with me in times like these. I know he was overtired and that’s why he acted out, but he still disobeyed and had to get a spanking. It straightened him RIGHT up though so I’m glad I did it (if you’re a newer reader, you can read our beliefs on spanking here).
We were done with the entire place in about two hours time. The gift shop was really neat but way over-priced so I bought our family a Christmas ornament and called it a day. I also told Mrs. Charlotte to please not waste money on the kids getting more prizes, so we compromised and she bought them each an aquarium cup which Kye has LOVED so it worked out perfectly!!!
A couple pictures of G-Mama with her grand kids!
We left right away to get back to the hotel for naps and had a few issues while getting there…the parking lot was a joke. They have some ticket system for paying and it was ridiculous and the parking was $10 with no re-entry (not that we wanted to come back but that’s CRAZY expensive for parking!). My “trusty” gps got us mildly lost on the way back and we had a little adventure at a drive-through Subway (ordering subs in a drive-through setting just doesn’t make too much sense ya know?). Thankfully we made it back alive (I did have an quick drive down a one way street at one point…) and Kye and Lorelai enjoyed some nice naps. As did Robyn and I! We both slept and were mega out of it when everyone got off work. We ended the evening with dinner at Steak and Shake (Zach, Kye, Robyn, Matt, Lorelai and I) and putting the kids down early. I was another successful day!!!
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Ummm…Mrs.Charlotte looks like a mom and not a Grandma! Holy cows! She's a hottie! Also, LOVE the pics of the kids having fun and looking and learning…can't wait for Christian to see all the fishes! Ken and I went to the aquarium for our honeymoon and he had to drag me away from the stingray pool…I still will touch any animal I can. 🙂