Marine Mammal Mania

Vincent and Tyler,

Daddy and I took you boys to the Seattle Aquarium this morning. It's one of the rare Saturdays where we had no plans whatsoever. Nice. 

First, we had breakfast at Top Pot Doughnuts downtown. You've both been asking for it for a couple of weeks now, and truthfully, Mommy has been craving it. Boy, were you excited to find out that's where we were going.

Vincent, you woke up with some sort of pain in your foot. You have been limping a bit all morning. After the donuts, you mentioned the pain, again. That's when we told you guys our plan for the aquarium, but gave Vincent the choice to not go. Especially since he's going next week with his kindergarten class. Vincent wanted to go, and said he'd troop it out.

We found a great spot across the street from the aquarium. Parking is $4/hour now. Sheesh! Okay, it's been that way for a while now, but what a huge jump from about $2.50 not that long ago. Oh well.

And, since it costs so much to get into the aquarium now (gotta pay for that expensive remodel), it made sense for us to buy a family membership, which will pay for itself after one more visit there.

This week is Marine Mammal Mania! Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how that's much different from any other day at the aquarium, aside from a few extra activities, etc. But, it got us in there, among many others on this dreary, rainy Seattle day. Audrey found us, and gave us a special viewing of the northern fur seal getting a snack. Unfortunately, the female seal didn't want to perform.  Oh, and there was an expert from NOAA during the sea otter feeding/talk to give extra info especially for this week's event. If it hadn't started to rain, it would have been a very interesting, not to mention cute, talk. Love those sea otters!

While in the underwater dome, Tyler, you were very excited. I showed you the sturgeon, which you were super excited to show off to Vincent later. Vincent, you were quite interested in the sea horses.

We ate light lunch that I packed for us, went to look at the salmon life cycle exhibit, went under the dome, again, then headed home.

During the drive, Vincent said, "This was a great day, even though it was rainy." You then went on to talk about how it could be the best day ever if we did all these other things, too: go to McDonald's, eat a really yummy dinner, do some iPad-ing, have a movie night...Wow, that's a tall order, Dude. We may be able to make some of that work for you, but probably not all. In fact, we had movie night last night. The Karate Kid.

Love, 

Mama