Labor Day Weekend

We got to see most of my family during labor day weekend. They all came down at some point. It was so great to see them all... and no one had to take a 7 hour flight! 

I finally got to meet my newest nephew, Tayten. He's such a cutie, and I was so happy that I could finally hold him, something I'd been wanting to do for a couple months now. Except he cried most of the time. He wanted his mom. Haha! Oh well...I will win him over soon enough. 

I also got to see Miss Sadie for only the second time. She was Tayten's age the last time I saw her, so she's grown up a bit since then. She is just adorable as ever, and I loved playing with her. She was a bit skeptical of Brian though and wouldn't go near him. She is just the sweetest little one. I'm so happy that we live closer now so that I can see all of them more often.

     

Tayten was happiest just laying on the floor, kicking his feet. I just love him! Look at those cute cheeks.

Sadie loves Tayten too. She kept giving him hugs. It was the sweetest thing. My favorite thing about Sadie is that she can make a lot of animal noises. The best one is when you ask her what a wolf says. Her little howl (ah-ooo) in her sweet little voice is the most adorable thing.

My brothers Tyler and Luke came down and brought all of our things from Idaho with them in a horse trailer. I was so excited once everything was unloaded. It was so nice to have our household back! We really appreciate them for storing the stuff for five years and then bringing it down to us.

We just had so much fun catching up with everyone, and there was tons of laughter as usual. It was so nice to be reunited again. In fact, we were so loud that our downstairs neighbors came up and asked us to quiet down a bit. Whoops!

Saturday morning, before Tyler and Luke arrived, we all drove down to Draper to visit the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium. Kiley and Scott had heard that it was nice and everyone wanted to go, so we did. Annie, Jake, Kiley, Scott, Sadie, Mom, Brian, and I had a fun time there. 

Doing things with kids is much more fun I think. It's so awesome to see how excited they get about things, so we had a great time watching Sadie.

The aquarium was fun, and we had a good time looking at everything. They had crocodiles, turtles, and various birds, along with all the fish. I was having too much fun just being with my family, and didn't take very many pictures. Also, a lot of the displays were lit dimly, so the pictures that I did take didn't turn out very well. But I'll share a few of the better ones.

I thought these piranhas were cool. I don't remember their official name, but their sides were glittery.

I also loved all the plants they had there. They were all labeled as well.

We all had fun watching this toucan eat his breakfast of grapes. He would pick one up and then flip his head back and let the grape roll down his beak into his mouth. 

They have a rope bridge in one section of the aquarium, and I wanted to walk across it, so Brian and I got in line. Kiley and Annie were nervous and didn't want to do it, but they came and got in line with us anyway. I went first, and it was actually a little scarier than I thought it would be. It swayed quite a bit, but it was still fun. Brian followed behind me, and then Kiley and Scott. Jake went, with Annie following him, but she chickened out and didn't end up walking across.

     

In the room after the rope bridge we found a photo booth and decided to go for it. I've always wanted to do a photo booth with Brian. Here was the result.

The resulting photo strip included a link for a video of us in the booth. It made me laugh, so I'm sharing that here as well. You can hear my mom and sisters laughing in the background. There was a screen outside the booth where everyone could watch what was going on inside. It was great! Annie and Jake, and then Kiley, Scott and Sadie got their pictures taken as well. It was fun to watch them.

We walked through the penguin exhibit next. I just love penguins. They're so funny. Most of them were just standing on the rocks, but one frisky little guy was putting on quite the show in the water. He was swimming back and forth really fast and doing jumps. It was great.

My favorite part of the aquarium was all of the salt water tanks that contained starfish, coral, and tropical fish. I loved the color of the sea urchin in the picture below. Those starfish sitting next to it were quite plump.

They had lots of different colored sea anemone as well. They were very cool to look at.

We got to see some sea horses up close and a tiny little cuddle fish. He was so small and just adorable. Annie and I wanted to take him home as a pet, but when I looked at Brian and he was licking his lips, I changed my mind. Brian saw him as dinner not a pet.

I also loved this little black and white clownfish. Isn't he cute?

The shark tunnel was pretty cool. We stayed in there for a while watching the sharks swim around and above us. This nurse shark was just laying on glass at the top of the tunnel. Apparently nurse sharks don't need to keep swimming to breathe.

We made it to the shark tank about an hour before the scheduled shark feeding time, so we just decided to hang out there and wait so we could get a good seat. Sadie was fussing, so Kiley and Scott took her outside to get some lunch.

We waited for a good long while, watching the sharks swim back and forth in the tank with all the fish. There were two sea turtles in the tank as well. I loved watching those swim. They swam with their bums higher than their heads, and we learned that they both had bubble butt. The condition occurs when their shell is damaged and air gets inside. As the shell heals, the air is trapped inside, making their back ends more buoyant. Besides the sea horses, they were my favorite part.

About 20 minutes before the show started, a couple of aquarium staff members came in and talked about the sharks. We learned that there were Brown Banded Bamboo sharks, Nurse sharks, Sandbar sharks, Blacktip Reef sharks, Whitetip reef sharks, Grey Reef sharks, and Zebra sharks in the tank. They taught us how to tell the difference between the species based on their sizes and markings.

We all were wondering why the sharks weren't eating the fish in the tank. They feed the shark three times a week so they aren't hungry, plus they only put types of fish in the tank that they sharks don't really care for. We were getting antsy to see the feeding, and they hyped it up quite a bit. They explained that the feeders would lower white cards into the water, each with a specific black marking on it. Each kind of shark was trained to recognize one of the markings and they would gather around that card. Then the feeders would lower sticks down into the water with fish on the end for the sharks to eat. We saw one card lowered in the water, and were waiting for quite awhile to see more and for the feeding to begin, when the workers said that the feeding was over. It was dumb. We didn't see any of the feeding at all. As we were leaving, the a couple poles with fish were lowered in the water but the sharks weren't biting. It was a huge letdown, and we felt like we had wasted our time sitting there for an hour and a half when we could have been looking at the other exhibits. So there was that.

Other than the disappointing shark feeding, the rest was pretty fun. We were out of time and needed to leave to make it back home in time for Luke and Tyler to arrive. Brian and I picked up a little glass sea turtle Christmas ornament in the gift shop on our way out. While in the gift shop, Brian and I caught Annie and I hugging these super soft and squishy stuffed penguins. 

Other things we did that weekend were visit Smith and Edwards...it is such a fun store. They have tons of stuff, and you'll never know what you'll find inside. And we bought some fresh peaches and apples at Pettingill's fruit stand in Willard. The rest of the time was spent just hanging out and catching up. The weekend went way to fast, and I was sad to see them leave on Sunday. I hadn't seen them for a whole year, and it was wonderful to be with them all again. It's so nice to know that we can visit them any time we want to, and much more frequently  now that we live closer. Life is great, and I'm so happy!