Yesterday we spent the morning at the amazing Vancouver Aquarium. The girls love everything sea-creature related and have quite a bit of knowledge about them (thank you Octonauts!) so they had been really looking forward to it.
Jellyfish
The first thing the girls wanted to see was the jellyfish exhibition and we were lucky enough to talk to one of the keepers as they fed the jellyfish and learnt that some of them have their mouths on the outside (the messy bit hanging down in the picture above) and they also eat other jellyfish! This didn’t stop us thinking that they looked very beautiful.
Beluga whales
Next we went to listen to the trainers talk on the Beluga whales. The whales were given a thorough check over and helped the trainers by turning over to show them different parts of their bodies on command. They also practised “speaking” and waving at the crowd, as well as the obligatory massive splashing! The girls were completely enthralled and now they both want to be Beluga whale keepers at the Vancouver Aquarium. That gave me a quick insight into how my Mum felt when I told her we were going to move to Houston for a bit!
We stopped by the penguins, sea otters and dolphins next and learnt more about all of them. It was beginning to get hot so we headed back inside to the Amazon exhibit (which was also hot, but in a more Houston humid way!) to see the butterflies, marmosets and sloths. The girls loved the butterflies (but not the parrots who squawked too much for their liking!) and were lucky enough to find a keeper who put a butterfly on their hands:
We then watched a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis and headed to the frog exhibit.
I’d arranged to meet up with a friend who I’d not seen for a long time who lives just across the border in the US but the Aquarium was so packed we couldn’t find each other. After a couple of hours when we hadn’t found them we decided to head back to the hotel as the Little One was tired, only to bump into them in the gift shop!
It was lovely to see them and to meet the boys, who the girls liked instantly, so we headed to the playground so the children could play and we could talk. After a while, the children moved on to climb some trees, before heading to the splash park and getting thoroughly wet running in and out of the sprays and having water fights with their new friends! The girls liked the boys so much that the Big One wanted to invite them to her birthday party in September, which was very sweet.
Water fight at the water park
After a truly lovely afternoon we said goodbye and promised to see them again when we next visit Vancouver. My Lovely Husband met us half way along the sea wall and we wandered back to the hotel. Another wonderful day in Vancouver.
