Downtown Aquarium

As is becoming a tradition in our house, we went with the preschool kids on a field trip to the Downtown Aquarium.  They had the "field trip" on Martin Luther King day, so all the kids got to go.  It was a lot of fun.  It was especially nice to not have to bring a stroller and to have the kids be independant.  Well, until Nate decided he didn't want to ride one of the rides we were going on, and as we about to board he ran off, far away.  Stinker.

The aqarium part of the aquarium is really interesting, there are some good displays, however, there are not many of them.

 They also have an area where the kids can touch some ocean creatures.  They got to touch sand sharks and stingrays.

 Also at the aquarium are white tigers.  It is a little confusing why a place with a title of aquarium has a white tiger, but maybe they just wanted to add to the mystique.  We read the sign nearby and it said that there was a white tiger caught in 1951 and all of the tigers in captivity can be linked back to this one tiger.  It also said that 1 in 10,000 wild tiger births results in a white tiger, since it is a recessive gene.  Needless to say, Nate was fascinated with the white tiger.

 One of the neatest things at the downtown aquarium is a train that takes you through a tunnel under a large aquarium.  In it you can see a ton of different kinds of sharks.  The one that is most interesting to me is the saw shark that has a long pointed nose with saw teeth on it. 

We also rode the ferris wheel.  I am mildly afraid of ferris wheels, so I had to carefully suppress those feelings when I rode with the kids.  Here are the boys right after we got in our car:

Nate, Ellie and I.  The cars have no railings and the doors can open when you are in them, so you have to hold on tight to your younger kids when you are riding.

As we went up the first time, Adam and Michael started to get a little nervous.  I looked down and saw this: