Day 13: Denver Part III

It is amazing how quickly this vacation is going by. I can not believe how much we have accomplished in so little time.

The first exciting event of the day was the loss of a tooth! Emerie lost one of her top front teeth. It has been loose basically the whole trip. We tried to convince her to pull it while we were at Mount Rushmore. But she would not even consider it! So by today it was hanging by a thread and she still would not pull it out. She was so funny about it, like she had never lost a tooth before! (She already lost the bottom 2 front teeth!) I even tried to bribe her with a webkinz, and she would not let anyone else pull it! But as we got in the car to go this morning, she let me see how lose it was and then she did not shy away when I grabbed on. So I yanked and out it came. She was so funny, she started to freak out that I was going to pull it, after it was already out. When she realized it was already in my hands she got this look like she could not believe that was it! So she has officially passed up her brother in terms of the number of teeth lost! And she got to go around all day with a "hole" in her mouth!

Today we took the kids to the Denver Aquarium. I know, it is strange to have an Aquarium where there is not an ocean! But for an off shore aquarium, they do a really good job of things. The exhibits are all very well taken care of and easy to see. Even for those being pushed along in strollers! They break your experience up into areas, basically grouping all those animals form one region together. The areas I can remember are the Rainforest, the desert, Under the Ocean, The Coral Reef, and the Ship Wreck. I believe there are one or two more, but I can not remember their exact names.

Each area was set up to make you feel like you were actually there. In the rainforest there was mist and a light rain that made it very humid and similar to what you would imagine a rainforest would feel like. And they don't just have aquatic animals here, they had a variety of birds as well as Tigers. We got to see all three of the tiger brothers out in their exhibit today. (I guess they can live together because they have always been together. Most males will not cohabitat with another male, they just fight for dominance)
In the desert they have a flash flood, which is pretty fun. And will get you wet if you are too close! Did you know that flash floods cause more deaths than any other water related natural disaster!

The kids also had a chance to feed Stingrays, although the only one brave enough to even try was Emerie. Lincoln tried to, but he wouldn't keep the fish in his hand so he never truly hand fed the rays. (It was definitely nothing like our experience in the Cayman Islands where we got to truly be out in the water with the rays, but it was still fun!)
Emerie and Rydman also had a chance to try out their climbing skills. They had two "fake" palm trees that the kids could attempt to climb. Cutler and Quincy were too little for this adventure, but that was probably for the better. From the looks of it, it was hard. You did not have much of a foothold, and if you started sliding you tended to slide all the way back down to the bottom.
Rydman was finally ale to make it all the way to the top and ring the buzzer. But he was pretty tired by the time he made it back down. And poor Emerie she tried her hardest, but never did make it to the very top. She got very close though. And she could have kept trying, but she was pretty tired form her initial attempts.

They all got to smash a penny, get a animal balloon, and the girls got their faces painted. So overall I would say it was quite a fun time at the zoo! We even had lunch at the Restaurant there at the Aquarium. It is cool because you are basically eating under water. Huge tanks cover one side of the restaurant and you can watch all the different fish swim by! The kids thought it was fun to try and guess the movements of the "School" of fish. When they did not cooperate with their predictions they would blame it on the teacher calling them back to school!

After the aquarium, we headed back to my Aunt and Uncles. We were having dinner with my Grandma, Uncle and Cousins. It is always nice to hang out with family. But there are a lot of bugs outside, so I was not to keen on sitting outdoors. I think they all know we are out of towners, because they seem to smell fresh blood! But it was still a nice time, even if I got a few new bites!