Munchkin and Bean: Our Trip to the Aquarium!

The trip into Boston was a pretty quiet one. The kids read their favourite books (Little Blue Truck books for Munchkin and Little Critter books for Bean). They sang the ABC song and Old McDonald Farm (Munchkin sang the E-I-E-I chorus, specifically not O). And our version of Marco Polo is becoming pretty popular with them. We basically just sing each others name, and Munchkin is usually the one who starts it.

We parked right next to the New England Aquarium and I honestly can't believe how expensive the parking was. $35 for 2+ hours. Crazy! But that's Boston. Right after we got tickets we went over to the Atlantic Harbor Seals exhibit which is right outside the aquarium. These guys are so cute and so fun to watch!

They swam back and forth and upside down and some were floating around casually.

The penguins were all so cute! And I love when they all get excited and start singing and chirping.

The tropical fish were all colourful and beautiful! The coral is artificial, because it would take a thousand years for the coral in the big tank to grow that large.

Can you see the fish in this picture? Fantastic camouflage! I enjoyed helping Bean find all of these hidden fish.

And I won't pretend that I know the names of all these fish. There are over 2,000 different species at the New England Aquarium and I bet I can only name about a hundred of them. So just enjoy the pictures!

I loved that all around the aquarium were different sculptures and moldings that the kids could feel. This way the kids were able to feel the texture of coral. They also had fossils, fish, turtles and penguins. Bean especially liked the fossils and turtles!

This little fish kept coming up to Bean and following her hair swishing around near the glass.

Sea lions and fur seals! They are all SO cute! They had so much fun swimming around and jumping out of the water and playing tag.

Itch-itch-itch.

I'm not sure why she was chipping at the rock with a screw driver but the penguins thought it was song-worthy and chimed in with her.

Sting rays turned out to be a huge hit with the kids!

Munchkin was really fascinated by all the different types of jellyfish that we saw!

Checking out the fish. Bean liked that she could feel all the different parts, which she really hadn't been able to do until now.

Bean enjoyed finding all the different types of turtles.

Most of the tanks had steps for youngsters to stand on to get a closer look.

The seadragon's were so pretty!

Huge North Atlantic Right Whale! The first big fossil that Bean and Munchkin have ever seen up close.

Baby sharks!

A lobster of another colour.

Munchkin enjoyed checking out all the small critters.

We managed to catch a few pictures of the sea turtles. Which was hard to do because they are fast swimmers!

Bean really enjoyed watching the sea anemones moving gently in the tanks.

Octopus suctioned to the wall.

Whoa, this guy is huge! Bean liked his eyes and was unfazed by his appearance.

Wow, this looks like a volcano erupting!

Shore birds.

Against the current tank. Bean liked hitting the current button and watching the plants move with the current and the fish swim against it.

Checking out a turtle on the bench.

Starfish!

Seahorses.

Big eel.

Check out that toad!

Poisonous frog.

Turtle! I think we saw at least ten different kinds of turtles.

I love how we were able to see a ton of different types of animals and how many of them were in different stages of their life cycles, so we saw some that were young/small and others that were old/big.

Baby seahorses! Oh. My. Gosh! So cute and super tiny!

Crab! Bean was able to touch him, along with some hermit crabs and snails. However she did not touch the horseshoe crab.

This fur seal was HUGE! And he really enjoyed ruffling up his fur and calling out to the crowd.

We watched the show they had with the fur seals and sea lions. They were really exciting to watch!

Jellyfish!

Super tiny jellyfish.

Sting rays are masters of disguise.

We managed to touch the sting rays and they have such an unusual texture, but it was awesome!

I took Bean up to the top of the tank to try and see Myrtle, who we hadn't managed to find yet.

We did manage to see some other great creatures though, like big sting rays and small sharks!

Hammerhead shark.

Tiny seahorses.

We were about to leave and were heading back down to join Munchkin and Albee at the gift shop. We saw the small sea turtle, but not Myrtle yet.

And then there she was! Sound asleep, go figure. :)

Bean recognized her immediately and ran right up to her! She said, "Myrtle, Myrtle!" and Myrtle woke up and looked at her!

And then a pesky little fish poked her in the eye a few times.

Size comparison. Whoa, so big!

Myrtle managed to sleepily look around. A crowd started to form around us now that people noticed Myrtle was there, so Bean wasn't able to see her for more than a few minutes. I let her talk to her and Bean said she named her turtle at home after her. So cute! Then we met up with Munchkin who was playing in the gift shop.

The aquarium was really fun and afterwards we had lunch at Faneuil Hall before driving home. I was expecting the kids to be tired (and Munchkin did end up napping half-way home), but surprisingly they were in a pretty goofy mood! We ended up picking out a sea turtle and a sting ray at the gift shop and boy am I glad I opted for the sting ray over the sea lion because Bean had so much fun with him on the way home! She ended up wearing both as hats and had an epic gladiator-style fight with the sting ray.