Every year for our anniversary we head to the Oregon Coast Aquarium to visit the place where we were married. This year our gift to each other was a membership so that we can go unlimited times this year. On our third visit we were lucky enough to be joined by our good friends the Brownells, and my sister-in-law Stephanie.
We started our day by going to Music Together at KAMA (Keizer Academy of Music and Arts) and then headed to Newport to meet our friends.
After arriving and getting the boys ready to go we joined our group and headed inside. It was the busiest it had been in the last few years we have gone which wasn't surprising because of the beautiful weather and it being the day after the fourth of July.
Since Jeffrey and I have been several times we led the way through first stopping by to see the new Swamplands exhibit which has what is probably my favorite stop at the Aquarium right now; The green Anaconda. There are two inside and they are enormous! I believe the biggest one is a 30 foot long female who apparently is pregnant with several little anaconda babies.
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| Chad with Elijah and Kira checking out the Anaconda. |
Also fun to look is the piranhas, the caimans, and other assorted swampland creatures.
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| Oliver inside the looking window of the piranha tank. |
After finishing the swamplands we stopped by to visit the Japanese spider crabs, which are always terrifying yet fun to admire.
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| The Brownells in front of the life size Japanese spider crab wall painting. |
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The jellyfish were in top form floating around their tanks as usual.
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| Elijah hanging out with the jellies while his sister Kira had a potty break. |
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After walking through the last few indoor galleries and making sure too point out all the crabs to Oliver (crabs are Oliver's favorite current thing) we headed outside to check out the sea mammals, birds, and of course Jeffrey's favorite the Giant Pacific Octopus.
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| A sea otter. |
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| Simon sleeping which is what he did the whole time. |
The kids spent a good amount of time with the birds, usually not one of my favorite exhibits but after seeing how much the enjoyed them may change my mind.
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| The kids enjoying the puffins. | | | |
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| The busy underwater tunnel area. |
The kids were definitely ready to check out the childrens area after all the crowded exhibits and we were happy to watch and help them play.
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| Oliver and Elijah enjoying a turtle. |
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| Oliver doing what Oliver does best. enjoying the Whale slide. |
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Before leaving the aquarium we had to stop by the gift shop to see if we could find Oliver any cute crab stuff to go with his new obsession. We were able to find a neat life like little crab toy and a fun At the Beach board book. Oliver has already memorized the book and enjoys reading it several times in a row.
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| Oliver's new book. |
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It was there that we parted way with the Brownells and headed to dinner at Mo's where we enjoyed a delicious yet rushed dinner because of a fussy Simon.
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| Jeffrey and Simon outside so that I could quickly eat my dinner and trade. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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The car drive home could have been more enjoyable but unfortunately we had two very tired boys who had had enough. After getting home and saying farewell to Stephanie a short and cool walk around our neighborhood soothed us all and was a wonderful ending to our day.
