Monterey Bay Aquarium - Our Visit

Welcome to our trip to the Aquarium. That's Ryan, in the red hat,  holding Zoe.

This post will be long and with lots of pictures and funny things about Zoe while we were there. The first stop was to this big tank. It's actually the otter tank. We did get to watch the otter feeding although there were only 2 otters, so it didn't last that long.

Zoe loved seeing all the fish. She kept saying, "Good Boy," whenever the sharks would swim by. We left the house at at 6am, and Ryan bought her candy on the drive up, so she was a little wired when we got there. She could have sat in front of that big tank all day. That big tank actually had different panels sectioned off, and she thought every panel was a different tanks and different fish than the ones she had just seen inches away.

Such a pretty view. This is from one of the observation decks outside. It's been a long time since we've seen the ocean. On the drive in, as we passed by the wharf, and saw tons of boats, Zoe said, "I can pick one?" ( A lot of times we give her a choice and tell her to "pick one")



Zoe really enjoyed the kids area where they had a playground and water tables for the kids to play in. She touched several starfish in the little "hands on" area. I didn't know starfish came in every color.

For lunch, we went out to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. While we were waiting in line, Cousin Taylor climbed up onto one of the bar stools and had a little pout. The bartenders thought she was pretty funny.

Also at lunch, seated near us, was a ridiculously hilarious mullet. Short and spikey on the top, long and curly on the bottom. Here's our attempt at a sly picture.

My favorite exhibit was the Jelly Room. They just glow and float. They are so beautiful. It took me until the end of our visit to figure out how to get decent pictures of the exhibits on my new camera. Which is why these are the only fish pictures I'm posting.

Jellyfish always remind me of two movies, 1. Finding Nemo and 2. Sphere. Both movies have filled me with a fear of these creatures but they are quite beautiful, behind glass :)



Zoe had maxed out by the time we reached the seahorses, so we ended up leaving shortly after that. Next time I think we'll try to go down the day before and spend some more time on cannery row and sightseeing Monterey. We had so much fun spending the day with the Humbert side. We don't often get to spend the whole day with the whole family (minus Cole, we missed you!) so it was a nice treat!



Oh and too add, we told Zoe she could pick sometime out of the giftshop to take home, and guess what she picked....

Yep, the hammer-head shark stuffed animal. That's my girl.

I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that we've been watching Shark Week on Discovery Channel.



And I think in a moment of crazy exhaustion, I decided to make bread. No, I'm not super woman, I was just too lazy to get out of my pajamas and drive to the store. Ryan makes sandwiches for lunch and we didn't have any bread. I found the recipe online and it's called Oatmeal Bread, and it is yummy and I highly recommend it!



XOXO,

Holly & Co.