Monday, June 18

Well, today the kids and I took our first trip on our own out to Boston. We had discount tickets for the New England Aquarium from the library. We decided to go today because it's the last day of school for our area and we thought it might be less crowded than a regular day. We took one bus and three trains to the aquarium without any mistakes. Jamie and Rachel are very helpful with David when we are traveling! It makes our outings go so much better!! We also took the added measure of stopping off at the service station and getting the stroller from the van, which made a huge difference!!

Right now the aquarium has a large penguin exhibit. It was really good. The kids got "passports" to stamp at different stations along the way. The penguins were in an open style area that you could look down into. These penguins were not from cold habitats, so the whole thing was normal room temp. I didn't know that there were penguins that didn't live in the ice and snow. One group of penguins was from Africa and another from Australia. I can't remember the third. David enjoyed looking at them. Also on that floor was a large "Save the Seaturtles" exhibit which Rachel loved!!

They also had a great jellyfish exhibit. All three of the kids really enjoyed that! There were lots of interactive parts to it. I learned that the jellyfish population is actually growing out of control because of the ways that people are messing up the oceans (overfishing, overfertilization, etc).

My favorite part of the museum was one little turtle in a tank. He was so funny! He would swim up to the surface for a breath, and then turn and swim down to the bottom. Then up to the top and down again. He did this over and over. David thought it was really funny. We followed along saying, "up,up,up.up,up" and "down,down, down,down". Another funny moment was when we came up to one large tank that contained some huge fish. David ducked and covered in his stroller, and didn't want to look at them.

Jamie also really liked the sea dragons. I didn't take a picture, though. We didn't get to look at them for long because David was still recovering from the "big fish" encounter.

Both boys tried their hands at petting starfish in the touch lab. Rachel mostly just watched this.

We walked up to the top of the tank and got a good look at Myrtle the sea turtle. She is around 70 years old and 600 lbs. We watched her swim round and round from the top and then in the windows as we wound our way down and around the tank.

We also saw an IMAX movie today. Sharks 3D. It wasn't as "in your face" as I thought it would be. I kept waiting for a shark to swim at us, teeth bared, but it didn't happen. Plus, the show was narrated by a sea turtle - which Rachel loved. The show was also about more than just sharks, they included lots about the prey too (sardines schooling, sea lions, dolphins, etc). I also learned that many well known species of sharks are now on the endangered list- like hammerheads and whale sharks. David fell asleep during the movie, so he got a good little rest and was ready to take off on the journey home. We came home during rush hour, so the trains and the bus were very crowded, but it wasn't too bad. People here have been very nice to offer help with the stroller on and off the trains and to give up seats so the kids can sit down. I really haven't seen too much rudeness from any of these "Yankees."