Thursday, August 27, 2009

Beach Trip - Part 5: Aquarium

Saturday morning checkout was by 11, but if you have young kids, you know you're up and ready to go much earlier than that. The car was packed, and we were ready to go by 9am.

So on the way out we thought we'd hit the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. We'd been talking to the girls about going there, and they were only mildly interested as they constantly told me they were afraid of sharks. We got there a little before 10am, and I think that's a perfect time to go on a Saturday. We were able to park right up front, and it wasn't crowded at all.


As you can see they were thrilled to get there and pose for pictures. Lily is not pulling down the fence. It was like that.

Once inside, Lily wanted to head straight for the sharks. Truth be told, I wasn't even sure they had sharks and was just crossing my fingers. We kept trying to distract them with the other exhibits.


Don't worry - not a real aligator.


I like all the touch and feel exhibits they have there. You can touch rays and horseshoe crabs. They girls touched this one for just an instant.


Finally the sharks. The big tank at the end has 4 sharks. We were lucky in that we were just getting there as they sent divers in to the tank to talk about them. There were probably 50 other young kids and their families in front of the glass too, and all anyone cared about was the sharks. Did they eat the other fish? What do they eat? Why do the divers carry sticks?
The girls liked and remembered the divers best. Lily got very upset when they were gone.
Neither of them wanted to leave, but there wasn't anything else left to look at. They each got a coloring book from the gift shop. Madeleine got mermaids, and Lily wanted one with divers in it.

We left a little after 11, and the parking lot was crazy. Apparently that's when everyone else shows up to the aquarium.

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