A trip to the aquarium

The Friday before school started I decided to take the boys on a surprise trip to the aquarium in Seattle. We figured it wouldn't be too busy since most of the districts in the area had already started school. The crowds weren't too bad so it seems I was right. It was a gorgeous summer day in Seattle and I was glad to be on the waterfront.

The first place we always stop at the aquarium is the touch pools. Sawyer refused to touch any of the animals. He was completely freaked out by them. Brandon tried to talk him into it, but he refused.

 We DID finally get him to touch the water at least. But he only wanted to play with the sea foam created by the tide pool wave machines.

 My three boys checking out the sea critters. By the way, don't you just love when somebody jumps into your picture right as you're snapping it? Thanks dude.

 I swear this kid is insane. He's so goofy! But I love him.

 I wonder how much longer I'll have before Brandon decideds he doesn't want to have his picture taken in the cutouts like this anymore? My little boy is growing up too fast.

 Brandon wanted to try on a diving suit at the dress up area. So we all stood around and waited for him to get suited up. Sawyer slipped his little feet into some flippers while we waited.

He searched and searched for another sock, but finally gave up as Sawyer was reaching his "Okay, I'm done standing around, we better keep moving before I have a breakdown" point.

 I didn't take many more pictures inside because it was just insanity moving through the rest of the buildings. Sawyer is starting to move faster and faster lately and it's a lot more work to keep track of him. Pulling out my camera and staging pictures isn't really a big priority right now when I'm with him. My focus is on "Where did he go?!!" instead of "Let's capture this moment for years to come."

When it was time to leave I wanted to get a nice picture of all three of the boys together outside of the aquarium. But Sawyer was more interested in climbing over the railing to see the water under the pier, so he wasn't too happy when we tried to get him to hold still for a picture.

 But he was okay with getting a shot on the steel octopus sculpture.

After we left there we walked down the waterfront to find something to eat. We ended up settling on Red Robin since they have booths to trap the little one in. Plus the tourists had taken over all of the good fish places. I had wanted to take them further down to Ye Old Curiousity Shop, but I decided that Sawyer probably wouldn't handle that too well. I guess we'll have to take the boys to see the mermaid on another day!