Rubbish and Love

So I've been putting this off for over a week. I haven't done so intentionally, it's just been another one of those weeks around here. I wish I could say that not all of our weeks are full of hectic-ness and late nights, but I've a good feeling that I've got a few years yet until I'm able to relax in a blissful state of nothingness. Someday, right?

So a month or so ago we bought memberships to zoo and the aquarium. The weather up here a week ago was beautiful! We're talking sunshine, little breeze, and close to 60 degrees. This time of year up here 60 degrees is a big deal. So we packed the cooler, threw some bags and the stroller in the back of the van and headed for the beach! It was nice to know that the whole trip was gonna cost us about $30 bucks worth of gas. We had packed lunch and snacks the night before so we didn't heven have to worry about buying food.

We were at the aquarium around noon and spent about two hours there.We started at the seals and went from there. At first we went to the little windows below and didn't see any seals but Mei managed to grab some awesome pictures of the duck feet and the rays of sunshine coming through the water:

Once we made our way to the upper levels and worked our way through the crowds we finally saw some marine life!

Cute little seals swimming around and chasing each other around the pool. Mei was so excited she almost squealed!




The Oregon Coast Aquarium has this cool new exhibit that displays trash found in the ocean. They've taken tons of trash found on beaches and created art out of it. There is a giant whale skeleton made from plastic milk jugs, a big green turtle made from various bits of green, a jellyfish made of soda and water bottles wrapped in netting, and  a few other really interesting things. It was really enlightening. I never realized how much pollution seeps into our oceans. Certainly makes me rethink those plastic water bottles and soda cans....

The trash tunnels led to the deep dark under ground full of tunnels, sharks, and fish bigger than Loralai. There were sections of the tunnels that had glass on the floor so you could look down and watch the fish swimming underneath. Lora was all about laying on the floor and staring at the "kitties". She could have stayed there all day.

We spent close to an hour in the tunnels and finally headed to the rest of the aquarium. The kids were especially interested in the jelly fish and the touch pools. Loralai kept poking the anemone , and Kira was in love with the starfish

 Mei thought the piranahs and the anaconda were pretty interesting. They had a big mural of how big the anaconda actually was and Mei was flabbergasted that a snake could be that big. They had a neat hole in the middle of the piranha tank that the kids could stand up in and look around:

<----- Piranha




Anaconda
        ---------->






A few years back Meghan showed us this awesome park in Lincoln City that has a HUGE play structure and a small area where the kids can play in the sand and water without the parents worrying about the kids getting run over by boats or dragged out to sea called Regatta Park. We headed there for snacks and playtime after the aquarium. Sera got her first feel of sand and needless to say, she LOVED it!

Nina kept putting sand on her feet and curling her feet together rubbing the sand between her feet. Loralai had more sand in her pants than she did in her shoes. We got home around 6 with three very tired little girls and a day of adventure accomplished. When we looked through the pictures that Mei had taken that day we found some very interesting photos that she had taken while driving in the car. Apparently she got bored hahaha

Kris and I were laughing so hard we were crying, especially over the Gene Simmons rock out look.

We've got plans for a trip to the zoo soon. Hopefully Mei will get bored in the car again and provide us with some high quality entertainment :)