Day 1 - Aquarium

We have such a FUN family vacation this month!!!! Bry had a work meeting in California so we all loaded up and headed out on Wednesday afternoon.  While Bry was at his meeting on Thursday I packed the kids up and headed to breakfast and Long Beach Aquarium. Carter loved loved loved our breakfast at Denny's and ate more than half of MY whole wheat pancakes with bananas and glazed pecans. 

I was a bit nervous driving around an area I was not familiar with at all, but we survived and did not get lost! The aquarium was AMAZING and we had SO much fun!!

They loved the huge fish, jelly fish, penguins, sting rays, spider crab (Carter loved this but Maylee did not want to get too close :) ), Nemo and Dory, sea dragon seahorse, sea turtle (I think Carter and sat and stared at this guy for 5-10 minutes), model sized whale (the kids loved how huge he was), baby sharks, and the scuba diver!  We happened upon the scuba diver presentation on our way out and the kids thought it was awesome!!! Carter asked for the camera and took about 20 pictures.

There were some nice exhibits of large sting rays that we saw right in the beginning. Carter surprised me and could not get enough. He waited and waited and touched and giggled. He loved them! Drew was entertained for a while, but was ready to move on. Maylee would not have anything to do with actually touching them, but liked to watch them.

Towards the end we went to the shark area where they could touch baby sharks and sting rays. Again, I think Carter was ready to jump in with the little babies...he looked like he had with how wet he was! Drew liked the baby tiger sharks (at least they looked like that) and Maylee just wanted to watch. :)

They had a water feature outside that sounded like the ocean. The water would get louder and shoot up higher. Carter loved it...the others...not so much. *laugh*

We ended the night with a swim in the pool and a soak in the spa....and then my camera died!