Aquarium & Lunch with Mattie

Mattie's membership to the Aquarium is about to expire, so we got in one last trip with her today. It was especially nice because we followed it up with a ladies lunch, with Mattie and Sylvie sharing a grilled cheese. We will miss our trips to the Aquarium, Mattie!

Romero Britto & Aquarium

Yesterday morning Sylvie and I met our friends Mattie and Aaron at the Aquarium. While waiting for our friends, Sylvie and I checked out the Romero Britto sculpture exhibit at the Pike across the street. We are definitely going to try to make it to one of the free painting parties inspired by Britto's work over the next two weekends.I'm sure you will not be surprised to hear that Sylvie's favorite sculpture was the snake.

At the Aquarium, Sylvie loved driving the boat, as always.

What a sweet friend Mattie is, helping Aaron get up to the boat.
Mattie and Aaron touching the stingrays...Aaron was an expert sting ray toucher!

A Really Good Find

As you already know, Sylvie is a regular at the LB Aquarium. But I'm not sure if I've shared before that her very favorite exhibit is the scuba divers. They're not exactly an exhibit, but most times we are lucky enough to see a couple of them in the tanks cleaning and feeding, and Sylvie just loves it. She begs me "please, please" to let her go in there too, and when we get home she goes to her dress-up box for her scuba mask and snorkel and we take turns pretending to see fish.

So you can just imagine Sylvie's reaction last week when on a trip to the Aquarium with Mattie, she saw this plastic scuba diver. She actually screamed with joy. Diver has become a regular attendee of Sylvie's "hot tea" parties. A couple more pictures of Mattie and Sylvie from the Aquarium...

More pictures over on Mattie's blog.

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

Thomas' class goes on a field trip to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro every year, so Sylvie and I decided that we needed to check it out too. (It's even free.) We went this morning with cousins Natalie and Matthew. It was a lot of fun, and we will definitely be back.*

Since it's grunion season, we got to hold a jar of grunion eggs and shake the jar until they opened, leaving us holding a jar of baby fish. This was reeeeally cool. In the Exploration Center, there's a section with dress-up and puppets. Sylvie chose a fish costume and some rain boots.

There's also an area with marine life puzzles.

And of course, there's a touch pond. This is a great touch pond, nice and low for kids.

Cousin Matthew, out on the sand...

*One head's up if you go...food options are limited/virtually non-existent/one hot dog stand. Definitely a good place to bring a lunch.

Aquarium

Sylvie and I took a trip to the Aquarium with our friends Jenny and Mattie yesterday. Sylvie and Mattie swapped snacks, which is one of their very favorite things to do together.And we got a great look at the sea turtle.

We also got a great look at a scuba diver's buns because he had his back turned to us while cleaning a tank. We decided to be kind and not take a picture. But Sylvie loooooves seeing divers at the Aquarium and when Daddy walked in the door last night, the first thing she told him about was the diver's buns! More pictures over on Mattie's blog.

Aquarium with Grandma & Papa

Sylvie and I spent an excellent morning at the Aquarium with her Grandma and Papa.