A Visit to the Aquarium
Hello to everyone.
Xavier's Grandma Penny paid us a visit this week. It's been nice hosting her and letting her and Xavier reacquaint themselves. She arrived at an opportune time as Rebecca was in Cheyenne Thursday and Friday. She babysat for Xavier while Daddy got work done.
Aunt Chellie came down from the North today to visit with her mom and to bring Xavier the swag she got him on her recent trip to Anaheim California, which included a whirlwind visit to Disneyland. At her suggestion, we all spent the late morning and early afternoon at the Denver Aquarium.
This is the first time Xavier has visited the aquarium. He and Mom took Dad to lunch at the restaurant last Father's Day, but we did not walk the exhibits. Everyone was sick that day, and we did not think Xavier would make it through the exhibits.
This morning, we packed his big stroller, mounted a car seat base into Grandma's XC90, then headed out. As it turned out, Xavier did not need the stroller; he walked through much of the exhibits and was carried through the rest. The stroller instead carried our coats and his diaper bag.
Right out of the gates, Xavier's excitement took him from tank to tank, at a run most times. He had no awareness of crowds coming and going, and he made all of us work to keep him close.
One exhibit had large catfish and other large fish swimming near the glass wall. For a while, these held Xavier's attention. Then, he saw the video game machine next to the wall. The fish no longer mattered. He wanted at the machine. The machine, a standard arcade-sized unit, controlled a submersible camera in the tank that, until he saw the machine, held Xavier's attention. The machine allowed you to maneuver the camera around the tank in all three dimensions, right up to the fish if your control was good enough. Alas, Xavier could not use the machine, though he really wanted to.
He enjoyed many of the exhibits. Aunt Chellie helped him crawl into some "kids observation domes," which were domes protruding up into the bottoms of the tanks. To get to them, you crawled (if you are an adult) or walked if Xavier-sized, under the tank, then stood up under the dome. The fish swam around your head. After Chellie took him the first time, Xavier decided he needed no more moral support and found it fun to run around underneath the tanks.
On the way out we passed by the ray tank, where you can feed the rays. Our timing for feeding the rays, however, did not work out; they were the opposite of out to lunch. A posted sign read "The rays are on a feeding break."
Instead of feeding the rays, Xavier got to visit with a Mystic Mermaid. He was afraid to sit with her by himself, but had no problem when Daddy held him. Strange, two months ago, he had no problems sitting by himself with Santa.
Shortly after, some men came in and carried the mermaid off along with two other mermaids they carried from somewhere else. The mermaids had a show to do in another tank. This left the restaurant half empty, so we enjoyed lunch right up to the time Xavier needed a nap!