Dallas World Aquarium

For day 2 of our Texas trip, we headed , with my Mom and my sister and her family to downtown Dallas to the newly remodled Dallas World Aquarium. We were worried about crowds so we got an extra early start, or tried to get an early start, I should say. My sister and her crew beat us there, so this is just my Mom and me with the kids out front:

If you are back in D-town, I highly recommend this attraction! We had a blast and there was tons for the kids to see. I got some tips (albeit very late night tips) from my sweet friend, Carole, who visited the aquarium earlier this year.

Fortunately, we were able to miss all the crowds that they encountered and moved through to most of the attractions with ease. It got much more crowded as the morning progressed, so we were thankful for her tips!

Each of the children got to take turns feeding this bird, which was extremely exciting for all! Daphne and Isaac were fearless:
Victoria has a LOVE/hate relationship with most animals. and when I say hate, I mean more like terrified. Whenever she sees any sort of animal, she always wants to get closer, closer and then closer still. She gets more and more excited until they reciprocate that interest, at which point, she becomes convinced that said interest is aggressive and retreats. But that only lasts for a moment and she's back to getting as close as possible. So you can see how these situations look a bit like a confusing sort dance. Here she is with the birds, still in the love part of the dance: Then we saw a sloth, who slowly turned his head to pose for a picture!
Crocodiles!
Manatees! I'm not really even sure what's in this case, but it was a good pic of Victoria looking at....something.
Monkeys and Pythons.... GiGi and Samantha took a brake for some cuddles:

There are some eels in this tank and Tori is telling us that they have long necks: And then we stopped by to see the Otters, a fan favorite:
They were so cute and playful and fascinating! The kids loved this one, and we were able to hang around to hear the Aquarium dude tell us all about them. This little otter stopped by to have a staring contest with Isaac: The Otter guy passed around an otter skull for everyone to see:

Photo Op by the waterfall!!

Victoria had just gotten into her stroller and started digging in on some snacks, so she wasn't interested in the phot op... bummer.

Sea Turtles!

I don't even know what that is:

Penguins!

Fishies!

Then we hung out at the shark tank, which was amazing... it was an archway and the arch was the tank itself, so you were essentially walking through the shark infested waters! They would swim all around you and over you and the kids (especially Tori) loved it.

We waited and watched for a while and then we even got to see some divers swim in and feed them. Too cool!

And finally, a shot of everyone all together... just before the end.

Actually, there was lots more fun stuff to see, including a Jaguar, but our camera battery was done for the day. We had fabulous time followed by a picnic with Shelli and Jason at a nearby little fountain place... All in All it was a pretty grand day!