Family Day

We wanted to have one last fun outing before the baby comes, so today was the day to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific. We usually don't go to big public places on Saturday...usually we take advantage of Tom's Friday off to go on a Friday, but yesterday we had to take Natalie to her eye appointment, so we decided to risk going to the Aquarium on a Saturday.

It worked out great! The aquarium opens at 9 am and we were one of the first inside. We saw all the exhibits we wanted to see, had lunch, and left at noon. It started to get busy about 11 am, so we were already done seeing everything we wanted to see in about 2 hours, bought the kids gifts in the gift shop, had lunch and left by noon. We were so pleased with how un-crowded our experience was. We also chose the Aquarium because there isn't as much walking as the SD Zoo, or Wild Animal Park, since we aren't trying to induce labor yet. I didn't carry Natalie at all, walked slowly and took a lot of rest breaks, just to make sure.

The outdoor pictures turned out the best. Natalie is excited because she can actually see the fish in the tanks because she has glasses (the last time she was here, she didn't have glasses). Here Lukas is petting the rays with two fingers. He also petted anemones, starfish and other small slimy invertebrates. Another highlight was seeing the sea lions fed and seeing the "Nemo and Dory" tank. Lukas also enjoyed getting a penny smashed with turtles and the name of the Aquarium on it...at home he promptly wanted to put it in his piggy bank, which at least means that it won't get lost! Lukas said his favorite thing was "seeing the sharks", which I think means "petting the rays" since we only saw the sharks briefly, and they weren't super visible. Who knows, maybe he did enjoy the sharks the most! We all had a great time.