Children's Aquarium

We made our first visit down to the Children's Aquarium in Fair Park on Wednesday with Share Share, and P was in heaven.  The kid LOVES animals and gets excited when we go to the pet store to look at the fish tanks there, so this adventure was right up his alley! :)

The facility is split between the salt water tanks and the fresh water tanks and then outside is a pretty incredible sting ray exhibit where you can feed, pet, and observe sting rays in a very up-close-and-personal way.  P loved it!

I wish I had had my good camera with me, but alas, the iPhone pics will have to do. 

Our first stop was the salt water tanks.  P's favorites were the sea turtle (and rightfully so!!!), the sea horses, the large orange fish in a floor to ceiling tank, the model large octopus tentacles (I wish I had a picture to show what this was... :)) next to the real octopus, and the lion fish.  Also super cool were the sharks, morey eels, jellyfish, freakishly large lobster, and freakishly large grouper. :)  I wish I had gotten a picture of the sea turtle and P...it swam right up to him and just hovered in the water in front of him.  It was really neat.

 Then we headed out to the sting ray exhibit where we got to pet the sting rays.  It really was (as my child would say)...SO COOL! :)  I was able to feed the sting rays - which was quite the experience, and then we just watched and watched and watched them...I think P could have stayed there all day.

 We was hesitant to touch them...although he would sometimes accidentally do so while putting his hand in the water. :)  He really just liked staring at them through the glass.

Here's the funny little face on their underside. :)

Here's some footage of P and the sting rays.

 

Although it would be hard for anything to compete with the sting rays, we ended our trip with a quick jaunt through the fresh water exhibit.  We saw some red-eared slider turtles eating some romaine lettuce for lunch, a seriously terrifyingly large snapping turtle (I'm not kidding...this is the kind of thing nightmares are made of), and best of all an albino alligator.  After the sea turtle encounter and the one I'm about to tell you about, we've decided that P may be some kind of animal whisperer. :)  When we walked up to the alligator exhibit, the alligator had his back turned to us.  Then, all of a sudden, it turned around (as can be seen in the picture) and just stared at P for quite a while...then when P walked away, it turned back around, and that was that.  I saw some other little kids go up to it, and it never turned around for them...so who knows! ;) Maybe P's been working on his animal language all this time... :)

We will DEFINITELY be coming back here! :)  It was a hit!  As my mom and I talked about, it is just so fun to watch the joy and excitement that P has for life and for things like animals.  To be able to see the world through a child's eyes is a reminder that the world in which we live is a pretty incredible place. :)