Seattle Aquarium

Sitting right along the Puget Sound in Seattle is the Seattle Aquarium. It is in this unique looking building and at first glance I wasn't quite sure it looked much like an aquarium. We were welcomed as we entered the aquarium by a full size wall fish tank. It was quite a site to behold. Our kids love fish and they could have spent forever just looking at all the fish in this one gigantic fish tank. We, of course, moved them along to explore all the other neat sea life. Our kids loved the mock tidal pool and the touch and feel tanks. They loved being able to touch the orange and purple starfish and the sea urchins. The highlight of the day, however, was seeing the octopus. It was nestled right up to the glass of the tank and so we got a great look at this interesting creature. It's too bad it was way to dark to take a picture of it.

Abby was fascinated by everything around her but she was a little difficult to manage. She frequently screamed when we picked her up to take her somewhere else or to put her in the stroller. I have to attribute some of this to the fact that she only had a short nap in the car on the way up to the aquarium. I'm sure there were people who thought we were bad parents as we walked around with a sporadically screaming child. Atleast I felt a little better as I passed this woman holding her screaming boy almost upside down as she tried to just ignore his temper tantrum. The joys of parenthood...they are so much fun sometimes!!!

After seeing most of the fish we ventured over to see the birds and otters. There were two sea otters that were playing kind of rough with each other. It looked like they were biting each other. Then as we rounded the corner to see the river otters we noticed that one was nestled right up to the glass all cozy like. This cute little otter was trying to take a little nap while sucking on its tail. It was one of the cutest things I had ever seen.

On the way out of the aquarium we passed by the gift shop rather quickly to avoid the, "can we get this please," from our older children who kept asking all afternoon if we could get the cute octopus stuffed animal. Before leaving we stopped back at the big fish tank and noticed there was a scubba diver inside. She was hooked up to an external oxygen tank and had another cord to connect her microphone to where we were standing. She was answering questions from the kids. We stayed and both of the boys even mustered enough courage to ask a question. After leaving the aquarium we stopped over next door to ride on the carousel. Emma was so excited because she had looked forward to doing that at the zoo (which we canceled because of the rain). It was the best of both worlds coming to the Seattle Aquarium---Emma got to see animals and ride on the carousel for her birthday! After getting home from the trip there was a surprise on the kids bed. Mike had gone back into the gift shop and bought the octopus. He is notorious for doing that. The kids were so excited! Now we have a new addition to our house...his name is Octo or Sticky and he is loved by all!!!