A day at the Aquarium

Today we went to The Aquarium of the Pacific. It was fun. We went a few weeks ago when Poppy was here. At that time I was under the impression we had purchased a membership. Poppy had bought us the four tickets and then I decided to upgrade the membership. Apparently the card was never processed so when we got there we were not members. After some haggling with the membership desk they let us pay the price of the upgrade and I have to bring proof of our previous entrance. It was a bit of a hassle but all in all they were pretty nice about it. We did our usual run around, the kids looking at the exhibits dragging Dan along so they could show him their favorite.

Before we left I told Papageno that we were not going to eat as soon as we get there. He has a habit of announcing he is hungry the moment we walk in. Wouldn't you know it, this time it was Dan. As we walked in he said he was hungry. Unfortunately he was the only one. So he had to wait. We ran around, starting with Papageno's pick of the spider crabs. My favorite is the Leafy Sea Dragon, but we didn't get there. Dan finally convinced us to get some food (and we convinced the kids).


On the way I mistakenly thought the scuba divers were going into one of the giant tanks. This is Bug's favorite thing about the aquarium, so of course, we had to stay. Unfortunately their projected arrival was 12:45, I asked Dan what time it was and thought he said 12:40, he in fact said 12:00. So we waited and waited. The good news was, in the process of waiting we discovered that they were giving out prizes, Papageno wanted one so we went to investigate how to enter the contest. It was a drawing contest. Now Papageno loves to draw, so the possibility of a prize was a bonus. He drew 4 pictures before we could drag him out and into the cafeteria.

While he was drawing Bug got to watch the scuba divers.

Since Papageno wasn't really that hungry we was finished early. So, were able to duck down and see the drawing for the prizes. He didn't win. Rather than get disappointed he headed straight to the drawing table and started drawing more pictures. When it came time to do the draw for the prize they rigged it for him. They said they felt persistence should count for something. He was so thrilled!!! Just to throw the whole experience into total awesomeness, they gave Bug a prize too.

Home to soccer for Papageno and nap for Bug. He did reasonably well on the soccer field. always good to hear.

All in all a pretty good day.