A Visit to the Georgia Aquarium

This past week was spring break for Ellie, so I planned for us to head up to Atlanta and go to the Georgia Aquarium on Friday. We have never been and I kept promising Ellie we were going to go, so I organized the trip about a month ago. My Aunt Joyce lives in Atlanta, so we stayed with her. Mama and Daddy wanted in on the fun (and volunteered helping me wrangle the girls for the trip) so they went with us. Worth was on call, so we left him in Valdosta.

Ellie decided to get strep throat Wednesday, but since we had already purchased tickets, parking passes, etc. I decided we would do the trip anyway. Ellie never acts puny when she's sick anyway and other than a fever, swollen glands, neck pain, and not eating (which she never does anyway) she was good to go. I know, I probably should be turned into child services for taking her up there, but she was so excited about it and had been home all week with strep, so I couldn't crush her and change our plans. Hopefully, she didn't infect the thousands of people that were there!

I don't think I've ever been anywhere like that where everyone was so rude. People would just walk or stand in front of you when you were clearly trying to get a picture. When we ate lunch, Ellie and I were sitting at the table finishing our food while the other folks were in the bathroom and a man and his entire family just came and sat down at the table we were at AFTER I  told him other people were sitting with us. I guess he just didn't care. Ellie and I got up still chewing our food and my dad came over and helped retrieve our stroller that this man's family pushed away from the table. I know there were tons of people at Disney, but everyone was so nice there. I felt like I was in New York instead of Atlanta at the Aquarium!

Despite the annoying people, the girls ended up having a great time. The best part of the whole thing to us was the dolphin show, which I was not allowed to take pictures of. So, no pictures of that awesome performance, but I did my best with some other pictures.

At the entrance to the aquarium with Grandma

Ellie refused to pose in this picture and Emma isn't doing a very good job of it. And yes, Emma has a serious mullet that she refuses to let me do anything with so I have given up and I let her wear it proudly

At the entrance to the tunnel in the ocean voyage area

Whale shark - it was amazing how big those things were!

Ellie and Emma amazed as they ride the moving sidewalk through the tunnel

Another close up of the whale shark, these animals fascinated me!

My only picture of our whole crew: Mama, Aunt Joyce (my dad's sister if you can't tell), my Dad, Ellie and Emma

This is a boat in front of the whale shark, it was feeding time. I don't think you could pay me  enough money to be in that boat doing the feeding

I loved the big sting rays (sorry pregnancy brain has made me forget the real name) but they just looked like they were flying through the water! So cool!

I thought I cropped this picture, but I guess I didn't do it correctly - sorry for the random lounging dad and kid added into the photo.

Big sister helping Emma see the frogs

Giant American Bullfrog - Gross!

Beluga Whales were beautiful creatures

Sea dragons were amazingly frail looking to be ocean creatures

The penguins thought Emma had food for them

Example of rudeness: as I was trying to get this picture of Emma and Ellie the lady and her daughter to the left decided to jump in and get their picture as well. UGH!

Cropped shot

Hopefully no one came immediately behind Ellie to put their face and mouth on the plexiglass like she's doing in this picture! I tried to keep her from doing that, but it is hard to do with a 4 year old. Sorry for anyone that got strep throat from my daughter!