Living Planet Aquarium

For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa Gee gave us a trip to the Living Planet Aquarium.  We went on January 23rd.  It was so much fun!  All five kids were excited, in awe, and obedient the whole time!  We made some great family memories and are so grateful that we were able to go!  Here are about a million pictures, from both Nicki's camera and mine, of our fun adventure:

Checking out the local underwater wildlife in the Utah exhibit.

Alison and a lot of fish. Yes, I know my captions leave something to be desired,but what am I supposed to say here???

Nicki took this one.  Her camera takes better pics through the glass.  This picture makes me kind of hungry...

We brought a stroller, but Quin never used it once.  He was too excited to sit.

The otter exhibit was amazing.

They even have a part where you can stick your head up into the exhibit at get close to the little critters.

Josh and Bron riding an Orca.

Ali getting hugged by one.

Quin and Nick on an Orca.  

The jellyfish room was one of my favorites!  You can't tell in this picture because the flash went off, but the lighting makes it look like you're underwater. 

A bunch of tiny jellyfish.  They were fascinating!  More than once on this trip, David and I wished that we could come alone some time and take our time in the exhibits.

Ah - there's the cool underwater lighting.  

The girlies in a deep sea diver.   

This Spider Crab kind of freaked me out.  

The penguin encounter is one of the big draws to the aquarium.  It is pretty great.

Again, Nicki's camera.

We saw a short 4-D underwater adventure video.  4-D means that it's 3-D plus vibrating chairs, squirting water and puffing air blown on you, etc.

All three of our boys were NOT fans of the water and air blowing on them.  Quinton in particular was terrified.  The rest of us thought it was pretty awesome!

There was a rope bridge in the Amazon section.  Nicki and Quin went together.  He made it all of two steps before she had to pick him up and carry him over.  What a great sister.  

As you can see, there is no possible way of falling.

But it is still a little frightening.  

Just walking through the pretty amazon jungle.

One or two of the fish in this tank were bigger than a car!  HUGE!!!

Here is an electric eel.  They had a button you could push to receive an electric shock equivalent to a baby eel.  I didn't do it - I know what a shock feels like, thank you very much.  But most of the rest of the family did it and they said it was pretty intense.

This little croc (or gator, I can't remember) was looking at us from above the water. but we could see his whole body under water at the same time. Cool!

ANACONDA!!  Not even a full grown one, but terrifying just the same.  He was in the same tank as the piranhas. 

Two of the cutest boys ever enjoying the turtles.

They have a couple of petting zoo-type pools.  You can touch sting rays (stingers removed), starfish, and sea urchins.  It was the kind of thing you could do for hours.  

There is Nicki helping either Quin or Bron (can't tell) and Josh, who was the most brave of us all in terms of what he would touch.

The best part of the day was going through the glass tunnel with sharks swimming all around and over you.  WOW!!!

You don't think Bronson liked it, do you?  

There were dozen of sharks, several different species, swimming around.  Also, some rays and sea turtles.  We stayed for quite a while.  It was beautiful!

And I end with my favorite picture of them all.  My five faves all sitting still at the same time.  A rare moment indeed!