At the Aquarium

I mentioned before that I've been exhausted lately and that I wasn't getting much reading time in. Even my weekends have been chock full of "stuff" to do. But this past weekend, it was GOOD stuff.

Hubby, Kiddo and I spent Saturday at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It has always been one of my very favorite places, and Kiddo loves it as well. When I was a stay-at-home mom we had season passes and I'd take kiddo at least once a month. His favorite part is the shark tank - sometimes we'd go just to see them (skipping the rest of the aquarium).

Our visit coincided with the Grand Opening of the all new dolphin show, Our Ocean Planet. Kiddo is NOT a fan of dolphins - any guesses why? Well, it's because dolphins sometimes attack sharks. Didn't know that? Kiddo could tell you all about it (or you read lots of answers here).

Kiddo dislikes dolphins so much that we usually skip the dolphin show on our aquarium visit, but we convinced him that we should check out the new show. And I'm glad we did - it was pretty cool!

The intro to the new show gets the audience involved by inviting them to text answers to questions and cast votes for their favorite creatures. Hubby and Kiddo has lots of fun texting their responses.

Throughout the show the trainers showed off the abilities of the dolphins ... including the way they can splash the audience on demand. The only thing missing was our favorite trick - the super high jump.

After the show we wandered through the rest of the Aquarium and checked out all our favorite creatures. My favorites are the rays ... and there are LOTS of different kinds here.



























The last part of our tour took us to the shark exhibit, Kiddo's favorite place. We got a great look at the saw-nose shark and all the other snaggle-toothed sharks that Kiddo loves so much.

On the way out of the shark tank you pass through an underwater viewing room where you can see the huge ray tank. Luckily for us, a diver was feeding the rays so we got a few really good looks at their underbellies. Cool!

Here's kiddo and a ray, up close and personal. I told him it looks likes they are kissing each other and he said "MOM, I WASN'T kissing him. I was just LOOKING at him." Oh, sorry.














Here's a ray eating a squid from the diver's hand - how cool!








If you are interested, here's a video of the ray tank from the top. You can also the a zebra shark (my other favorite creature) and a sea turtle.



And here's a video of the rays getting fed. Sorry for the dimness of the video but it was quite dark down there.



I hope you've enjoyed my tour of the Aquarium. We had a wonderful time. If you are ever in the area, I'd say this is a MUST see.