"I See a Dwain!"

This past week we went down to Portland to spend a couple of days with Mark's parents, since Mark had Friday off at work. Our major outing was a trip to the Texas State Aquarium, and let me tell you, Rachael really enjoyed that! She would run to one fish tank, look for a minute or two, and then say, "I want see 'nuther' one..." and would run to the next tank. She got to see all kinds of fish, a couple of sharks, some turtles, some jellyfish, a few exotic birds, and one bald eagle. She also got to see a dolphin show as well as a diver feeding some of the fish and sting rays. Here are some pics from that day.


Here we are just arriving at the Aquarium, so we're fresh and ready to go.


All these blue-tinted pictures were taken in an underwater viewing room. Rachael especially enjoyed this place because she was allowed to freely run all around this room. She was mostly interested in the drains in the floor right in front of the tank. Sure, there were cool dolphins swimming right past her, but "look at the dwains!! There's one, there's another one!! I see a dwain!"




Looking at the dolphins, before she discovered the drains






Looking at the 'sea toitles'




Poor Ryan got hauled around in this harness all day. It was the only way we could carry him the whole time without wearing out our arms. He got pretty heavy, though.




Ryan, starting to wear out.


This was at the end of the day. Rachael was so tired; I'm not sure she even saw the bald eagle in the background. Both kids did so well, but not even Ryan got his normal morning nap that day. I think he fell asleep the minute I put him in his car seat to leave, before I even had him completely buckled in. We had a great time with them, though.