Long Island Aquarium

 Today, after sweating out all of the anxieties and stresses of the week at Spin class, I grabbed our kids and took them for an afternoon visit to the Long Island Aquarium.  I'm personally a fan of aquariums.  I think that ocean life is absolutely fascinating, and without aquariums, we'd have no other access to see or learn about the incredible creatures that the oceans hold.  After showing our kids the exhibit where most of Nemo's friends were, they were intrigued as well.    

Backing up a bit.  Before we enjoyed the ocean life, we stopped in to check out the Butterfly exhibit.  

Again, although I'm not much of a sciency person, I find butterflies pretty amazing and beautiful as well.  This little guy, for instance, was pretty normal on the outside, but when he opened up his wings he showed off the most beautiful and vibrant coloring I have ever seen.  Granted, he wasn't super cooperative for the camera, so you'll just have to take my word.

Within the Butterfly exhibit was an open and interactive room where you could feed birds.  

Ellee was too impressed, but Christian made a friend.

After hanging with Christian for awhile, he flew back to his home.  It was pretty fun to be able to get up close to this cutie and I'm happy that our kids got the chance to check this exhibit out.

Before we left Ellee did her best to stand still and was rewarded by a visit from this beauty.

After the butterflies, the kids ran over to see the main attraction, the sharks.  

The sharks were pretty awesome and we really enjoyed seeing them up close and personal.

And in a funny turn of events, this adorable sea turtle was also hanging out in the shark tank.  After waiting patiently for him to swim around, Ellee finally got a picture with this beautiful creature.

After the sharks, we walked outside to visit these handsome guys.

Ellee's been studying penguins in Kindergaren, so it was pretty fun to be able to bring her to the aquarium to see them in person. 

Christian claimed that he could hear them talking. 

 We had a great afternoon.  There were fun exhibits outdoors and the kids had a blast checking them all out.

Even though it was cold and a little damp, we also had fun catching the sea lion show.  

We were a small but faithful audience.  Ellee was quite amused by the sea lion's antics.

She was also a huge fan of using the map to figure out where we should go next.

Good gracious, I love this little girl.

This aquarium visit was actually one of her Christmas presents.  She made the decision to invite her brother along, because she is sweet and awesome like that.

All in all, we had an incredible time at the Long Island Aquarium.  It was pretty awesome to see some of the amazing creatures that God has made.  

It was a great way to end a pretty crazy week.  Last week around this time, I got a call about my Dad being rushed in an ambulance to the hospital.  At that point, it was looking like he might be in serious trouble since his kidneys had stopped working.  Thankfully, he was able to get to a good hospital and undergo a few dialysis treatments and praise God, fast forward to today, and his kidneys are now working again and he is well on his way to recovering prayerfully to a dialysis-free life.  I talked to him this evening, and for the first time in a week, he finally sounded like himself again.  God is good and I'm so very thankful that He's healed my Dad's kidneys and watched over our family this week.