A Day at the Aquarium

When it's pouring down rain outside, what better way to spend a morning, but wandering around some of this city's finest attractions. My city is the site of the Tennessee Aquarium. This fabulous place was opened at the tail end of my junior year in high school. I can still remember working as a volunteer during opening weekend. It.was.crazy.

The first building that opened was River Journey. It's all freshwater fish and mammals. Ocean Journey opened a couple of years ago and it houses the really exciting penguin exhibit! Here's our morning out in pictures. And the morning I'm referring to is this past Sunday morning.

This is a Hyacinth Macaw. Gorgeous blue feathers and master imitator of voices. He was saying "hello" and "goodbye", which was amusing, but then he started to imitate the different laughs that he heard. That was hysterical!









Ocean Journey has a touch tank that's full of sharks and sting rays. The kids had a ball with it! The rays were hilarious because they kept swimming up on the glass and seemingly waving their fins at us.




Big A LOVES the butterfly garden. This trip she was determined to catch one of the many butterflies on her hand. After many failed attempts, she finally lured one (with daddy's help) and was so excited!









The ever popular penguin exhibit opened last year and it's a HUGE hit. I could watch those penguins for hours! The Gentoo and Macaroni penguins in this exhibit are very social and love to interact with the humans on the other side of the glass. Little A and nephew were enjoying this penguin's diving show.



This penguin loved Little A. He kept swimming up to her and looking at her. She was hypnotized and very amused.











This was my proudest shot of the day. I'm still trying to get used to my "big fancy camera" and finally managed to turn the flash off and use a manual setting. VERY SCARY. Anyway, these are some jellyfish that I captured. Big A was enjoying watching them move in an underwater ballet.



The kids loved the dive show. The divers actually talk to the audience and interact with us while telling us about the fish and sharks that live in this exhibit. My favorite is the elusive sea turtle who occasionally makes an appearance.








We finally made our way over to River Journey where Big A found something to climb on...finally. This is the top of the River Otter exhibit. Gorgeous waterfall! The otters were being shy this day.









This is something that I just found to be too funny. Apparently this alligator and turtle have grown up together. So, here they are, taking an afternoon siesta. The alligator is actually resting his head on the turtle's back. This is something you probably wouldn't see in the wild.



Before heading to lunch, I wanted to grab one last pic of this fountain in the courtyard. Hubby & I were photographed in front of this fountain just before our wedding reception. If I can dig out the photo, I'll post it here. It was VERY cool. Here's nephew enjoying the view.