The Loveland Aquarium

On Monday after Eliza's baptism we all went to the Loveland Aquarium, taking advantage of the Family Night discount.  We picked the kids up from school and drove straight there, arriving right on time for the discounted rate to kick in.  It worked out great!

Jack loves all things SHARKS so he was really excited
about this Megalodon jaw in the lobby.

The touch pools were really cool.  The starfish are so spiky,
and the sting rays feel really slimy!  It took some convincing
for Luke to try to touch anything.

Jack spent a lot of time at this touch pool, which had several big rays.  He even named them:
Zapped, Zappy Zap, Big Zap, Medium, Baby, Short-Tail, Splashy, and Splashy Jr.

It's hard to tell in this picture but the fish here have funny googly-looking eyes.
They're actually called Four-Eyed Fish.

Jack found Dory!

Another one that's hard to see, but Luke is standing in front
of a tank of seahorses.  There were several kinds in the aquarium,
and some were even pregnant (the males of course).

On our way to the shark tunnel!

There were a few kinds of sharks in the tank, but the most shark-looking
were the Blacktip Sharks.

Jack was pretty excited.

We also found some Nurse sharks.

In the Utah area, Eliza spent a while talking to one of the
empoloyees about the ducks.

I was really excited to see the otters there.  The kids humored me in staging a cuddle party.
(From "Finding Dory."  See below.)

In the arctic area, the kids had to be coaxed away from the submarine
before we could find the main attraction -

Penguins!  The aquarium attempt to mimic the day/night of the animals'
natural habitats, so it was already dark in the penguin area, but it was still
fun to sit and watch them swim around.

I didn't take many pictures in the Asia area - though there were some Clouded Leopards but
like the penguins their area was already very dark so you could barely see them.
I thought this Lady Amherst Pheasant was pretty crazy looking though, so I had to share.

We spent a lot of time in the South American portion of the Aquarium.
The rope bridge was a favorite.

Testing out the shock of an electric eel.

Holding butterflies.

This enormous fish is called an Arapaima.

A Two-Toed Sloth is hanging around in the basket at the bottom
of the picture, and if you look really carefully you can see a Tucan
at the top.

Jack and I were pretty excited to see a Goliath Bird-Eating Spider,
which we'd read about in his Extreme Animals Encyclopedia.
(It turned out, we saw a few other animals that were included in that book as well.)

More big marine life:
Luke is looking at an American Lobster
Bottom left is a King Crab
Eliza is with a  Zebra Mantis Shrimp (which can strike with the force
of a .22 caliber bullet, causing the water in front of it to boil)

Eliza posed in front of tons of turtles from all parts of the world.
Can you see all of them?  The sea turtle on the left side has weights
on its shell because it couldn't use its back flippers.

We had so much fun at the aquarium that we stayed and explored for about 2.5 hours before getting a quick dinner and going home to bed.  It was a great adventure for everyone since we could indoors (out of the cold!) and admire amazing creatures we otherwise wouldn't be able to see.