Shedd Aquarium

We've been hitting the museums pretty hard this past month. Most museums downtown are free during the month of January, so we really like to take advantage of this. Last time we visited the Shedd Aquarium it was so crowded. I suppose that's the risk you take by coming on a free day. It's great to go during the week when it's free because then it's not as crowded, but Steve can usually only come on the weekend, and we already do so many fun things without him anyway.

We bought passes that let us into the Wild Reef exhibit, mostly for the sharks, and then to the new Oceanarium show. Both kids love hands-on things, so they gravitated towards the over-sized microscopes and touching the fake coral.

In the Wild Reef exhibit, there's a section in one of the rooms where stingrays swim right under your feet. The kids loved pressing their faces to the glass floor to look at the rays. Watching them reminded me of the first time they'd walked across that same floor when they were 17 months.

Right outside this exhibit, we looked at some fish tanks. Here's a cute picture of the kids touching a bass sculpture, or trout, I can't remember.

They always like looking at the large tank in the center of the aquarium. Sometimes there will be divers in the tank feeding the fish, but no one was in there this time.

We were told to get to the show 45 minutes early. I sat there for 15 minutes while Steve took the kids to the Polar Play area. Then, he joined me with the kids, and we had to sit for another 30 minutes. That was really a bad idea. By the time the show started, Jared had fallen asleep, and Alexa was a whiny mess.  The whole show centered around theatrics. Whatever happened to just watching the dolphins just jump through hoops?  It's like they had to turn the entire production into a Las Vegas style show. We were unimpressed, including Alexa. She wound up flipping through different clips on the video camera the whole time.

We were going to leave after that, but the kids wanted to show me the Polar Play area, and we wound up staying there for quite a while. I have one picture of the kids up on a rock, but that's it. There were so many kids there, it started to make me uncomfortable after a while. I love for them to be around other kids to play, but when dozens of kids pack into a small area, it's not good for anyone.  All in all, we were glad we came, but I hope next time we choose a day when it's not so crowded. I guess that's what memberships are for, huh?