Living the life of Reilly: A Special Day at the Aquarium

Reilly loves animals, any and all kinds. He has definitely inherited this love from both his daddy and me...we had 4 dogs before he was born and have added even more animals since then. We are very lucky to live in a city with a wonderful zoo, an aquarium, and an insectarium. Reilly's Pawpaw (another animal lover in the family) volunteers at the Aquarium and over the weekend he arranged a special treat for us.

Bobby left very early Saturday morning for the Ole Miss game, so later that morning just Reilly and I headed downtown to the Aquarium. We were meeting his friend Kamron and his mom there too, so Reilly was very excited.

As soon as we got there, we found Pawpaw and headed to our first special treat...feeding the stingrays! (Unfortunately Mary and Kamron were running late, so they missed this part). Reilly waited not-too-patiently in the line, and finally it was our turn. He was scared to put his hand in and actually feed the stingrays, so he just dropped his fish in. To be honest, I was kind of freaked out to do it too, but I had to set a good example so I acted much braver than I felt.

Next up: petting the baby shark. Reilly was a little scared to do this too, but once he got up the courage to do it, it was ALL he wanted to do..he must have petted the shark 20 times.

By this time, Mary and Kamron had arrived, so we went and checked out some more of the aquarium. We saw penguins, frogs, sea otters, all kinds of fish, plus some birds and an alligator. We took a break for lunch and were walking around some more when Pawpaw called with some exciting news...it was time for us to meet a penguin in person!

We went back into a back room and there was one of the other volunteers with a penguin named Cole (I think). We all got to pet him for a few minutes. I wasn't sure what I thought he would feel like, but it was just like touching any other bird. The boys were really excited, but very good. They were gentle and didn't make any loud noises that would have scared the penguin.

After spending some time in the play area, we rounded the boys up and headed home. It was a really fun afternoon, and one I know that I won't forget anytime soon!

My little prince on a big frog