ah-quar-mum

That would be the AQUARIUM. A tough word when you're three and a half. TheCincinnati/Newport Aquarium to be exact. Gabe had a night trip to Cincinnati for work, so we tagged along. And we appreciate him giving up a quiet car ride and a full night's sleep in order to spend some time as a family! We made it a water themed overnight trip and swam in the hotel pool and went to the aquarium. This kids "soaked" up their Daddy!

After a little bit of a rough night sleeping in the hotel - including Mommy hiding under the covers with the laptop to pretend like she was going to sleep! - we headed to the aquarium with Aunt Allison.

First up, the penguin parade! This crazy penguin guy danced with the kids before the aquarium opened, and this was the first time Henry has been really excited about a character and pretty willing to go up to him.

Dancing with the penguin before the parade.

The term "parade" itself was a little misleading. We thought the penguins would actually waddle around, but it turns out they just bring the three penguins out in a stroller with the kids walking behind them. A little anti-climatic, but Henry thought it was great.

Then on to see some fish - Henry really loved Nemo and Nemo's daddy. And Maggie found her own fishy friend. This little fish really did love Maggie, as she kept swimming over to say hi to Maggie. And Maggie squealed, smiled and kicked her little legs. She definitely wanted to touch the little fish and didn't understand the glass stopping her. She loves fish and it's so fun to see her get excited about them and interact with things more now!
The big tanks are pretty cool - they had a huge old sea turtle with a damaged foot

And lots of sharks swimming around

This doesn't even look real but man look at those teeth!

At one point the shark came swimming towards us with his mouth opening and closing. Henry was pretty scared and buried his face in my shoulder. But what was even more scary were these scuba divers. They were cleaning the tank and when they saw the kids gathered they swam over and waved. Henry was petrified, poor guy! I tried to explain that they were people wearing masks to help them breathe but he thought the masks made them too scary. Even later asking him what he thought of the aquarium he said "I didn't like the scary guys, the scuba divers." No SCUBA for him any time soon

Making shark faces with Mommy and measuring yourself against a shark was less scary

Me and my fish loving baby!

We were at the aquarium a few years ago when we first went to Cincinnati and Henry was only one. It was good to be back, was a whole new experience for him, and we had our little Maggie with us!