Mystic Aquarium

My brother and sister-in-law are off in Mexico celebrating their 10-year anniversary so my mom has my nephew for the week. For someone not used to chasing a 2-year-old, that makes for long days. And Andrew has been in Chicago since Monday, making it a long week for me. So Friday we decided to take the kids to Mystic Aquarium to distract them from torturing us (and each other).

Around 10:30a.m. we piled the kids into the car and headed to Connecticut. Of course there was an accident, so we sat in virtual stand still traffic for 25 minutes. By the time we got to Mystic, it was noon so we decided to feed the little ones before heading in to see the fishes. Lunch at Jake's Wayback Burgers was good. I had chili and Cesar salad minus the dressing, Parmesan cheese and croutons. In other words, I had chili and lettuce. The kids had hot dogs and french fries (I snuck a few, they we delicious) and my mom had a juicy looking burger.

The aquarium was PACKED. I thought I was so smart since the weather was kind of drizzly and a lot of the exhibits are outside, but apparently, a lot of other moms are just as brilliant as me. The natural starting point of Mystic is the beluga whales. They were adorable, doing all sorts of gymnastics and tricks in the water. Otherwise known as mating to us adults. We moved on to the seals & sea lions. Then the penguins. About as quickly as you read that. Two year olds have very short attention spans so we were on the move a lot. Then we hit the bog and the frogs. I'm not sure what was so amazing about the frogs but we spent a lot of time looking for frogs hiding amongst the leaves.

We tried to take some cute family photos at the end of the walkway, but Tucker was having none of it. Thanks buddy.

The inside fish exhibits were also a big hit. Tucker and his cousin were very excited to find Nemo and Dory swimming around the tanks but their attention spans and patience were declining dramatically (especially since they weren't old enough to pet the baby alligator). So we called it a day and decided to head home. My mom promised Bekkah a Memere/Granddaughter day at the aquarium later this summer to make up for the abbreviated day today. 

At this point, I was kind of desperate for a diet Coke. So I stopped at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru for a water. I ordered a coolata for my mom, a bagel toasted w/butter for Bekkah and two chocolate sprinkled donuts for the boys. They tried to give me an iced coffee. They asked if I had ordered a bagel w/cream cheese. Nope. I had to ask for my water. As we drove away we realized we had a bagel with cream cheese and two rainbow sprinkled donuts. WHY even bother asking me what I wanted if you were just going to give me whatever you felt like grabbing anyway?