Since making the decision to move back home to Canada {and Vancouver in particular}, Miss G has talked regularly about how exciting it will be to be able to visit the Vancouver Aquarium again. We were members before leaving for our second stint in Kuwait and visited regularly when she was wee, so it didn’t surprise me when she requested a trip to the aquarium in celebration of her fifth birthday.
Ever since arriving in Kuwait, Miss G has talked about doing 2 special things when we visit Vancouver next summer… Going to the Kerrisdale Play Palace and visiting Science World. Well imagine her surprise when I told her that Kuwait has its own version of both of those things – so excited! She’s waited for weeks and weeks, and now that we finally have a car, we were able to cross one of the two off of our list this morning.
Today Gracen and I were very lucky to be part of a group of blogging mamas {and kiddos} invited down to the Vancouver Aquarium for a special morning.
It’s no secret that we adore our local aquarium, and this visit was even more fun as we got to mingle with friends while following our very own tour guide. After making our way to some of the very cool Luminescence exhibits and some of the regular favourites (the giant sea turtles, penguins, and sea otters), we prepared for one of the really special events – a 4D theatre experience.
The feature film was a 19 minute version of The Polar Express, and though I was super excited to try out the whole 4D experience myself, I was definitely nervous about how my sensitive little lady would react. Just to be safe, I selected an aisle seat right next to the emergency exit, made sure Grae was on my lap, and explained {as best I could} what the experience would be like.
All in all, it turned out okay. She was definitely nervous in some parts and was not at all a fan of being sprayed with water, but at the same time, she didn’t want to leave the theatre either. While I’d probably wait a little while before taking her to another 4D film, I must say, it was pretty amazing.
After The Polar Express, we all gathered around the Pacific Canada Pavillion to await the arrival of the jolly old fellow in the red suit.
It seems he had carelessly dropped his jingle bells in the tank and therefore needed to hop in and search for them…
Luckily, with a very excited audience cheering him on, he found his bells and all was right in the world again. ☺
Today, Miss G and I met up with our good friends Cheri and Jaiden for a little play date at the aquarium. The girls are so sweet together that it just melts my heart. Here’s our morning in photos…
Jellyfish.
“Big fishie!”
Friends.
Dolphin watching.
Dolphin Grae.
Dolphin talk.
Perhaps this will lure them over?
Arm painting.
“Mama! Grae Grae penguin on arm!”
Penguin puppet.Although I really wanted to take Gracen to the members only penguin premier last week, events that start at 5:30 p.m. don’t really work for our 6:30 p.m. to bed gal. But that’s okay. I’ll happily skip evening events order to continue having a little lady that sleeps 12 hours through the night and another 2 during the day any day of the week. In our house, a well-rested munchkin equals a happy mama. We meant to get to the aquarium the day after the premier, but play dates and days-too-gorgeous-to-not-spend-at-the-beach got in our way. We finally made it there this morning though, and let me tell you, the penguins are ridiculously cute. They even wear beaded bracelets around their flippers. The penguin show was good {from what I could hear over the audience chatter} and the new habitat is pretty cool, albeit smaller and less grand than what I was expecting. Gracen’s favourite part was a little kids’ area they had set up in a corner where they were offering penguin bingo sheets and mini pencils. The only thing I was a little disappointed about was the fact that there is no seating or standing area where children can see the penguins when they’re up on the rock area of their environment (which is where they were both times we visited). Of course, you can just hold them up for a better view, but it makes for tired arms and a lack of good photo opportunities if you’re the only parent accompanying your child. A little inconvenient, but not a deal breaker. We enjoyed seeing the penguins enough to stop by twice during our visit and will definitely be back again. 
♥
