Baltimore

On Monday we headed up to Baltimore. Brent was attending a conference, so Allison and I thought we would tag along. We decided to get tickets to the National Aquarium. Last year we were supposed to go, but Allison was dreadfully sick with pink eye that turned into cellulitis, awful, needless to say we didn't go. I am kind of glad we didn't, I don't think she would have enjoyed it as much as what she did this year. (You'll notice some of the pics are blurry, that's because of no flash and too many moving things for the camera to focus!)

So, we walked in and they have all the sting rays and sharks. We got there around feeding time so we got to see the fish in action! We made our way up the ramp and began looking at all of the tanks. After awhile, a fish was just a fish to Allison. Good thing because we were off to the Dolphin Show!
We were quite excited and actually were brave enough to sit in the "Splash Zone"! I kind of wanted to get wet, thought it would be fun. Brent not so much. That Dolphin Show is amazing! We had so much fun watching the tricks that these wonderful mammals can do! The jumps were incredible, I still don't see how they can muster enough strength and have the water be deep enough to jump that high! I had to explain to Allison several times why she couldn't swim with them too......this question was of course followed by Why? Over and over.

After the Dolphin show we headed to the Jellyfish exhibit. Super cool and wonderful serene images from such painful creatures. Allison kept asking where their faces and noses were. I just told her they had noses and faces just not like us, which lead to why over and over.

Next it was to the Australian exhibit where we saw Alligators and birds and more fish. Allison sang her Crocodile song and then Five little Monkeys to the alligator, because he likes those songs. Of course he does! It was too adorable!

Finally, we hit the gift shop--every girl needs a pink dolphin! Then said goodbye to the fish and off to lunch. After lunch we headed back to our hotel room. We had an awesome view of the Inner Harbor!

We then snuck in a nap. Brent and I actually fell asleep before Allison! After nap, we headed to the hotel pool. We pretended to be dolphins jumping and swimming like fish. Then we went out to dinner at Phillips and back to our room and crashed! Allison and I got up the next morning drove back home and off to work and school we went. It was a nice change of pace and family time is always awesome!