I took the three youngest Grands to Ripley's Aquarium yesterday. We just love that place. I love when you walk up the sidewalk to go to the ticket line, there are facts in the concrete. Alexis loves to read them all. This was my favorite one yesterday.
They are always ready to get started, but they know that when they are with Mamaw there will be Kodak moments they have to pause for.
I love this one of them. The back drop is a mural around the water area over the sharks where the glass bottom boat glides around. L-R: Shelby, the wanna be diva/actress/model. Colby, our future major league baseball player, and Alexis who starts high school this year and already has her future mapped out as a school teacher. She will make a great one because she loves knowledge.
Our favorite exhibit is going through the shark tank. It is a tank with a moving walkway that runs right through the sharks. They swim beside you on both sides and on top of you. There is one who normally likes to just lay and sleep on top of the glass over our head and he freaks me out. Tried to get his picture but moved a little too fast to get it. This guy followed us around a lot.
When I took this picture I started humming the Jaws theme music. I don't think anybody found me amusing. Ha ha.
We got done with Jaws oops the sharks and headed to the coral reef. So many beautiful little fishes. There is a big screen to the side of it and it displays the fish one at a time with their name and details about them. As you can see, our future teacher spent as much time sharing the facts with the rest of us as she did watching the fish.
It was cool because when a fish would go by she was able to tell us what it was.
Then came the moment we were all waiting for. The Mermaid Show.
There was lots of diving.
Crazy flips.
And tons of smiles and laughter. Even when she had to go up to the top to get some air to come back down, she was so graceful. It was beautiful. I was as mesmerized as the kids. Made me want to go home and watch every episode of Mako Mermaids on Netflix.
We love everything about the aquarium. But we all love spending time in history section where they talk about shipwrecks. It is very historical and extremely educational and interesting. But what I find the oddest thing in an aquarium that I have ever seen, is that there is a whole section devoted to Abraham Lincoln. I love going through it, but still can't fathom why he is in the Ripley's Aquarium. I need to Google that. Colby and Shelby did enjoy posing as The Lincolns. They both knew not to smile because, as Shelby put it, "Nobody ever smiled in old pictures."
The stingrays were very playful yesterday. I normally have a hard time getting pictures of them for some reason. But today I had some good luck.
They go by so fast you just have to aim and click and hope for the best. I like this shot.
And of course we HAVE to see the penguins. It's the last exhibit and one of our favorites. In a separate tank was two little babies, but they were up in a corner and I couldn't get a photo at that angle. But they were so cute.
As with any attraction in the world, you exit through the gift shop. And we loved ending our wonderful day on a note of humor.
It was a great way to spend over the hump day!
