a family day with the fishes

on sunday afternoon alan got a wild hair and thought the family needed to take a trip to the newport aquarium, near cincinnati, oh. wilhelm and i were on board so we headed, on a VERY cold day, to visit the fishes (i realize that it is fish, but for some reason we like to say fishes at our house. when grammar becomes a little more critical for wilhelm we will halt the fishes deal.).

wilhelm, after a travel nap, woke up to a variety of fish, frogs, sharks, alligators, penguins, and more all around him. the boys and i had lots of laughs, including a run in i had with a sting ray, and found many teachable moments with our little guy. even though the underwater creatures were slightly out of their habitats they still amazed us with their skills and beautiful colors. viewing them was fun and interesting. i'm not sure which one of us enjoyed it the most, but these pictures will show you a few of the moments from our day.impersonating a fish is one of the popular acts at our house, so we thought the boys should try it out with the fishes in newport.
it might be a little blurry, but we did find nemo and hundreds of his look-a-like cousins.if alan and i had one exhibit to choose as our favorite it would have to be the jellyfish room. they had each species of jellyfish displayed behind frames (their tanks that it is), classical music playing, lighting that looked liked the fish for where the room received its namesake, and velvet furniture. for some reason it made us giggle! note to self & others: it is very difficult to photograph a jellyfish, especially if you are a novice. translucent images are a doozy!the penguins cage needed a little cleaning attention!after the aquarium, we took a quick trip to see pappy up the road in cincinnati. we continued the wilhelm fun day by taking him to red robin for a hamburger and french fries. sorry no pictures of this portion of the day.

once home wilhelm insisted on wearing the top portion of his haloween costume and building a makeshift tent with his daddy.wilhelm found himself very funny and scary, since he was in costume and hiding from momma. we played until a little too late, which made for a long night to get him to sleep. oh, well it was a tremendously wonderful day.