Field Trip Fun - Living Planet Aquarium

For this week's field trip, we decided to head to The Living Planet Aquarium. It was a last minute decision, so just before we left, I did a quick search online to find somewhere to eat.  I have to say, it's harder than I thought it would be to find somewhere for us to eat.  I need somewhere pretty casual, because when it's just the kids and I, I never know how it's going to go. Plus, they are both pretty picky with what they will eat, so I want to make sure that we find somewhere that has something for them to eat.



So after a quick search, I came across the Black Bear Diner.  Technically, this isn't somewhere that I would have normally chosen, because I really do want to find local restaurants - and this is a franchise.  But hey - I was searching quickly, and this is what I came to.  It ended up being further away than I thought it was going to be, but since I didn't have anywhere else in mind, we went with it.

The food was decent.  Abbi and Easton shared a grilled cheese and fries.  Abbi would only eat the fries, and Easton would only eat the grilled cheese, so it totally worked out.  I got a BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich, that was HUGE.  I only made it through about half of it.  For the side, I got onion rings, that were clearly not made in house.  But over all, it was decent.  Nothing spectacular, but better than some of the other places we've been!


And Abbi loved all of the bears everywhere, and even let me take her picture!

Then it was off to the aquarium  This was the first time I had been, even though I've wanted to go for years now.



 Of course, I walk in and pull out my camera, only to discover that it was completely dead.  So dead that the battery signal wasn't even flashing like it normally does when it runs out.  I had a moment of panic, thinking that my camera had died.  (Luckily, when I got home and charged the battery, it worked just fine!)  So please excuse the horrible iPhone pics.  But they are better than nothing!



 I was actually surprised how much Abbi loved this.  She wanted to run from one thing to the next and I think would have stayed for hours and hours if I would have let her!



I loved watching the otters.  When  we first got there, only one of them was awake, but he was kind of cool to watch while he was swimming around!



So many cool things to see.  I LOVED the jellyfish!




Easton wanted out of the stroller the whole time, and wanted to climb up onto all of the steps.  I think we have a climber on our hands!



Abbi was fascinated with watching the sting rays, although she wouldn't touch them.  But she kept wanting to go back to see them, and talked about them the entire way home!




We also loved the penguin exhibit.  Those little guys are so much fun to watch!  It was definitely the most crowded, but we were still able to watch them for quite awhile.  It seemed like they were having so much fun in there!


It was a really fun day.  My only complaint is that it's a little expensive for the size of the aquarium, but it was still fun to go.  There were a lot of really cool things to see.  And we probably would have stayed a little longer, but a bunch of kids on a field trip showed up, and I didn't want to fight my way through them with a stroller and Abbi.  But we had a great time!

I took some video of the otters and penguins, and instead of having it just sit on my computer like it normally does, I decided to throw them, (plus the above pictures) into a little video.  I really need to start doing this more often so the video doesn't just get lost!!