Adventures with Grandma

On the Thursday before vacation we spent a day with Grandma Laurie and Alex. We were originally going to hit the beach but the day started out very rainy so we changed up the plan and headed to the aquarium instead.

But before we could leave the kids had to dress the part of pirate adventurers (a new theme in our house thanks to our current favorite show, Jake and the Neverland Pirates!).

At the aquarium, we saw lots of fish and animals including the beluga whales, sea lions, penguins, rays, sharks, jelly fish, and lots more. Julia was very proud of herself (and I was too) for touching a ray which she said felt "soft and jelly-like." Benjamin tried imitating the sounds of a hungry sea lion and was pretty successful as he's quite the pro at loud bellowing! 

One of the best parts of the day though was taking Alex and Julia into the aviary. We were given sticks with food to feed the birds and sent into a large enclosure with lots of different kinds of cockatiels and parakeets. Both girls loved it and spent lots of time feeding the birds. Alex took to them right away and showed no nervousness at all coaxing a bird onto her stick to eat. He was a hungry one and stayed with her for quite a while.

Julia had a bit harder time getting a bird to land on her stick (being quite a bit shorter was a disadvantage) but Alex eventually ran out of food on her one stick and her bird was still hungry so we were able to transfer him over to Julia's. She was a little apprehensive at first but ended up being delighted by the whole experience which is shown pretty well in this series of photos.

Alex had several more birds feeding from her and was loving every second of it!

As we walked to the car after leaving the aquarium Julia turned to me and asked, "Mom, is it still raining?" Nope, it wasn't. So of course, the next request was "can we still go to the beach?" 

It was a little gray but ended up being a great time. I swam with all three kids, Benjamin and Grandma were entertained watching seagulls try to eat Skittles (they can't apparently), and we all slept well that night!