Sunday, November 09, 2008

Waikiki Aquarium

It's the weekend..so that means it was time to find something fairly inexpensive to do with the kids. I don't want to go to the beach until I'm prepared to take the boys' Christmas card photo (and I'm not.) so please oh please..let's do something else. We chose the Waikiki Aquarium.

Let me side note here and say Calix must have a homing device in him or something because he *always* knows where we are. EVERY single time we go through the gate (any gate) to get onto Schofield Barracks he immediately starts in with "hotel!! Mommy, hotel!!" and Orion and I look at one another with amazement every time because HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT??? He knows even when we don't say anything about going to SB..and we haven't been at that hotel since we got here but he *knows* somehow! He knows what store we're going to even if we don't tell him (and sometimes I don't because I like to see if he recognizes things)..he knows the stores when we pass by them. Today driving down Waikiki beach he was saying "yay! we're going to the zoo!!" even though we've only been there once (the aquarium is down the street from the zoo). The kid is just amazing.



I didn't notice until we'd already paid and entered the place that oh, hey..the battery to my camera is almost dead. Crap. Orion took one picture and then it shut off due to battery depletion. Maaannnn! Oh, hey..my cellphone takes okay pictures..I'll do my best with what I've got and just e-mail them all to myself. So.. sorry if the majority of these aren't the greatest. Fish move.



These fish were HUGE!


Especially that guy on the right..he was MASSIVE


a lone shark


that'll leave a mark..




Yay jellyfish!


Aren't they sooooo pretty?? They had this massive tank just full of them! This picture is now my cellphone's wallpaper.







Those are jellyfish..the little stubby ones right there. I cannot for the LIFE of me (or Google of me or Yahoo! or Wikipedia of me..) remember the name. It begins with an "M"..and it's taken probably 30 minutes of my life because dude! These jellyfish were funny! They were all bumbly and bumping into one another and what in the heck is their name??!?!? Begins with an M..and I give up.





Can you find the seahorse? They were all mostly sleeping but MAN I love these things! Hey wanna see something pretty neat??


Have you ever in your life heard of a frog fish? I hadn't until today and then I got all curious about this built in lure thing they have going on..so I went to youtube and found a few videos of feeding frog fish Isn't that awesome?!?!?



A sea dragon!




After we looked at everything inside, we headed out to see what they had out there..Orion and Calix found a view of Waikiki beach.



the sign says you're not allowed to pet the fish. Booo!! hehe


Sea lion..he was a little out of place there, I'm not going to lie.


hey look, it's my reflection haha..oh, and some fish


fishy fishy fishyyyy



Every now and then, I like there to be a picture of me with the kids when we go out. Ya know..to prove I was actually there and not just a reflection in a fish tank.



I'm not gonna lie..I thought we'd see more sharks (there was 1) and turtles (none) being that this is, I don't know..Hawaii. Maybe it was just an off day for them? Maybe there are usually more sharks there? I guess I was expecting something a little greater (I only have Ocean Journey in Denver to compare this to and lemme tell ya..this is no Ocean Journey) but I'm not complaining because DUDE! Jellyfish! Sea Horses! Sea Dragon!! Frog fish!! It totally had awesome stuff that my mind is still blown over by..but I promised the boys turtles and I didn't deliver. Oh well! We still had a great time!

6 comments:

Hannah said...

Ya know, I don't think I've ever been to an aquarium. I'd really like to. I just don't think we have any here in Arizona. It looks super cool though.

Oh and that vid of the male seahorse giving birth totally grossed me out! Ahhhh!! He kept turning and looking at the camera and then the background sounds of like a slasher movie or something. I may have nightmares tonight! Hahaha

Jenna said...

I LOVE aquariums. We have several huge ones around here, but I haven't been yet. Must go soon! Conor would love it! One of the six words he can say is FISH!

I love your captions. They always crack me up.

Saint Holiday said...

You're a great mom. And the hero didn't even throw the kid in the tank. He must have had an off day. At least he could have dangled the kid over the water. It builds character. Look how my kids turned out! You look beautiful.

Love,
The Ancient of Weeks

YogaNana said...

It's just like being there! :o) Fun pictures, thanks for sharing the moments with those of us on the Mainland. Ocean Journey is a fun aquarium, all right, complete with sea otters. I think the closest one to us now is Monterey. We went there for David's birthday -- sheesh, I think it was four years ago! Tempis fugit and so forth. They had sharks at the time, so you know, we *had* to go. Gotta see sharks!

Anonymous said...

Great pics! And I love that your hair is dark again :)

Sarah said...

Happy Birthday, Abby! I hope you have a wonderful day!

I apparently was out of the blog groove for a few days and I come back and there are several posts of yours that I needed to catch up on!

This aquarium looks fun! I love all the fish. My favorite is the 5th pic down. That big fish right in the middle...looks like he's having a rough day! LOL!

As far as your nights w/maddox...that reminds me of Alyssa (maybe it's a 2nd child thing). I would be up in the middle of the night often just crying wishing she would go back to sleep because I was SOOO friggin tired! She's still my little night owl, although nowadays, I don't have to hold and rock her while she cries in my arms. She can keep herself happy! At the same time, the time goes by too quickly and now I have no babies to rock to sleep and I miss that a little. I do like my sleep though. I won't lie.

As far as the Nielson's...there is soo much that each of us can learn from them. I have cried through reading her posts as well and am grateful for my trials and pray that I will never have to endure anything to that magnitude. They are amazing people.