2009 Vacation: Day 4

So we had a change of plans today because we woke up and it was raining really hard. We had planned to sled down the sand dunes, but obviously that wasn't in the cards. Instead, we decided to have a lazy morning and after lunch go to the North Carolina Aquarium. Because my hernia surgery was hurting, we decided that I would stay home with Jack and Connor. Before everyone woke up, Gabe and I played some Lost Worlds and I beat his butt twice in a row, making me the champion!



Then the kids went with Jen to the aquarium. Obviously, I wasn't there. So to do this update, I'm having the kids help me with this post to fill in all the juicy details of every little thing that they learned, did and experienced at the aquarium. Here's a picture of them in front of the wishing pond at the entrance to the aquarium:



Here they are throwing coins into the wishing well. I tried  to get them to tell me what their wishes were, but they all refused out of fear that they won't come true.



I was prepared to give you all detailed instructions on where the aquarium is. But guess what? I have a handy picture that shows you:



It turns out the aquarium was more dangerous than you would expect. A giant crab got out of its cage and attacked Gabe, Max and Marney. But it was the three kids I don't like, so it was okay.



This next picture is evidence that Kiki is destined to be killed by a coral snake (she clearly can't identify which one is a "friend of Jack" and which one will "kill a fella."):



Max's mouth says all you need to know about this giant cottonmouth rattlesnake: "Oooooooooooh."



Even though the giant crab killed Max earlier in the trip. It turned out to be okay, when a giant frog pooped out another one of him later:



How many Jones kids does it take to wrestle a large crocodile? Clearly more than five. Gabe is now known as Stumpy.



The otters were a big hit with the kids too:



And the turtles were beautiful:



They loved this shipwreck display a lot. Apparently there were two really cool puffer fish in this display that you can't see:



One of the cool things was that the aquarium had some hands-on displays, like in this shot where they got to pet sting rays. It turns out that their skin is rough like leather.



Even cooler was the tank where they got to pet sea urchins and star fish.



The star of the show was the giant sharks display:



They also watched a cool movie on crocodiles-- our prehistoric reptilian friends.



Like at Festival Harbor, they got to dig around in a fossil pit. As Gabe told me, "But this one was cooler, because it actually had bones in it."





Here they're trying to look through a telescope out at the sound, but apparently it was too foggy to see anything:



Here's a creepy shot of how very creepy and creepy the fog looked. Creepy.



But it wasn't all just water life. There was a Red Fox trail that had other displays as well. Here the kids got to look into a purple martin's nest. It actually had an egg in it!



They also got some cool greenscreen pictures taken of them that we actually have physical photos of. I'll try to take pictures (of the pictures) and post them up later.

And that's only half our day! We have our New Years Feast planned tonight with games and resolutions. I probably won't be able to update that until tomorrow, though.