The Georgia Aquarium

While we were in Atlanta for New Years, Evan treated Gracie, Jack, and me to a morning at the Georgia Aquarium. I was so excited because Gracie has never been to an aquarium or even the zoo. I couldn't wait to see her reaction! She kept talking about the "shishies" the whole way there, and I just knew she would love it.

Ally met us there, and she and Evan helped "wrangle" the kiddos :o)

Gracie loved the attention and was more than happy to hang out with someone other than boring old Mom.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

I have no idea why it took that way, but it sure is cool!

Another favorite.

We got to see the diver cleaning the tank in the tropical fish room. The tank was floor to ceiling and absolutely humongous.

The diver was great at interacting with the crowd.

She was amazed when she put her hand on the glass and the diver put his on the other side. I didn't get a picture, but the look on her face was priceless!

This room was definitely the highlight of her morning.

The look on her face in this next picture pretty much sums up the visit. She was very studious while looking at the different animals. She never got over excited. (Which I found to be very disappointing.)

In one of the rooms there was this cool little kid-sized tunnel that let to a window behind the tank. Evan took her back there and tried to get her to climb into the window, but she wasn't having any of it.

So, they came back out.

Look! Proof that Jack and I were there too!

Pretty Ally with her pretty new pocketbook :o)

Jack woke up for about 30 seconds before going right back to sleep.

Finally we made it to the playground. This was more Gracie's cup of tea. She made a couple trips down the whale slide before we had to go home.

Naturally, you had to walk straight through the gift shop to get to the exit (these people know what they are doing!). Gracie normally doesn't pay much attention to things in stores, so I thought we would be ok. Boy, was I wrong. She walked right up to a display of sippy cups and put one in her mouth. Gross! (Don't worry. We bought it. I'm not the parent who lets her kid mouth the toys and then puts them back.)

Right next to the cups was a display of stuffed goldfish named "Deepo." Gracie loved them....

Until she discovered the penguins and decided to start her own collection...

She even shared with Ally

This was fun until Mommy (always the bad guy) started putting them back on the shelves which, ultimately, resulted in this:

An all out, flailing, screaming, kicking fit.

Right in the middle of the gift shop.

Nice...

So, I stood there and stared down all the people who gave us dirty looks while the fit played out. A very nice employee finally helped ebb the tears by allowing her to hug one of the huge "Deepo"s. (I'm sure she was SO ready to have us out of there!)

As Dory would say: "Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!"

That should be the theme song for parenthood...

As a whole, the morning was a lot of fun, and I'm so glad we got to take the kids to do something special while we were in Atlanta.

Thank you Evan and Ally for a wonderful morning! Maybe next time we come visit we can go to the Coke Museum :o)