Catch Up: Aquarium of the Pacific

We had a lot happen after Lucy's arrival, and I want to make sure it's all documented. Please humor me as I play catch up! :)

We took a day and went down to Long Beach to see the Aquarium of the Pacific. It was SO cool! Paul had to drag me away from the membership desk. :)

The first thing you see is this life-size model of a blue whale and her calf. HUGE.

Photo Op!

Then on to some seriously awesome indoor aquariums. Every time we saw a crab we went "Hey! Heeeeeey! HEEEEEY" like the crabs on Finding Nemo - Sam really thinks this is what crabs say.

The jellyfish tanks were my favorite part - they are so surprisingly beautiful!

Sam loved the Sea Otters - I couldn't get a picture of either one of them still enough to nix blurring!

Our second stop was the Aviary. This part surprised me - Aviary? I thought this was an aquarium? We almost skipped it - I am SO glad we didn't! The birds in this aviary are left to fly around free and they will land on you! We bought a little cup of "nectar" (some sort of sugar drink in a Horchata mixing machine) and helped Sam feed the birdies. SO cool. I snapped a million pictures because I just thought it was so, so cool to have birds landing on us.
Next was the shallow outdoor pools full of Manta Rays and sharks. They let you touch everything in there and it's just stinkin' awesome. We spent a loooong time here and I only got 2 pictures because we were so busy petting sharks. Petting sharks!

This is also where we learned that female sharks lay unfertilized eggs all the times, like hens! So odd. There were a couple in the tank but I was too chicken (ha! chicken.) to touch them.

Several thorough hand-washings later, we took off for the big shark tank. No petting here. There was a shark that seriously looked like Bruce from Nemo (lots of Nemo references - need to find a new movie) and we were totally fascinated with those gnarly looking teeth. Really gives you the heebie jeebies!

Lastly, we saw the Seals & Sea Lions show, which was so amazing I can't possibly do it justice. All of the awesome tricks, flips and jumps, clapping and barking and just...cool. We shot video of it, but Blogger is ridiculous and won't upload them. Boo.

If you're in LA, go to the Aquarium. It felt a little pricey going in, but coming out we definitely thought it was worth the splurge!

love, mary