We went to the Portland Aquarium in Milwaukie. It was in a remodeled Angus Steak restaurant. Kinda weird, and I was skeptical, but we decided to go ahead and try it.
Xander loved how the fish exhibits were down low enough that he could stand up and look right at them.
He was LOVING it!
Over half of the fish exhibits were open topped so that you could feed or touch the fish. It was great!
Gabriella and I by the jellyfish
Matt and Xander by the scuba diver
Watching the shark tank
Xander watching while Gabriella and I were trying to pet the manta rays, bat rays and sharks
I got to touch several rays and a shark! It was SO fun! Plus we got to feed them and a bunch of fish.
Gabriella wanted a picture of Nemo
Matt feeding some Lorakeets
Xander having one on his arm. He is crying in this picture because Matt was holding his hand so he couldn't grab the bird. He really liked them a lot!
Me holding one!
(Gabriella was too scared to hold one but got really close to them)
Playing in a touch pool
Cute kiddos!
Xander with his wooden deep sea diver toy he picked out
(Gramma and Grampa gave him and Gabriella some money to pick a treasure with)
Gabriella showing me "sharkie" that she picked out.
We stopped at the Clackamas Center mall for lunch at Chipotle (my favorite restaurant!!)
The mall had a mini carousel and Ferris wheel inside it and Gabriella wanted to ride them. Daddy let her do that while I took Xander to the car and cleaned up a major poo-explosion!
Here she is waiting to get on the carousel!
Then we hit the road at naptime expecting to make it to Eugene before the kids woke up.....
Wrong!
We stopped in Eugene at Cabelas to use our free $50 gift card we had couponed ;)
We got $75 worth of stuff for free!! Woo hoo!!
Then we went to the other Eugene mall to let the kids run around some more
Gabriella playing in the baskets at Build A Bear.
Then we stopped in Cottage Grove (at Walmart so the kids could run around and play in the toy section and stop screaming in the car).
Then we drove home from there. It took us over 9 hours to get home from Portland (normally a 4 hour drive).
But we were happy to be home and sleep in our own beds!!
We had a great vacation (minus the drive home) and were so blessed with staying at great friends' house, visiting our good friends the Agnews and getting to see and experience lots of new things!
It was so nice to get out of town for a little while and be together as a family!
What a fun aquarium :) We petted a shark once at a place in Crescent City, I thought it was so cool! The kids are so cute with the fish and the lorikeets, what fun! I love the toys the kids picked out. Sorry you had a super long drive home, that's rough! Sounds like you had an awesome vacation :)
ReplyDeleteWe had a great time! It was nice to get out of town, spend time with friends and have a lot of time as a family (something very rare these days until Matt finishes school).
ReplyDeleteI hear ya!
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