Living Planet Aquarium, Part Six--The Otters

Besides the penguins, the otters were the coolest thing about the aquarium. They're so funny! They're very active, like puppies.

You can see all three of them in this picture--two in the water and one above it.

Living Planet Aquarium, Part Five--Shark Tank

The shark tank was pretty interesting; there were three different types of sharks, as well as lots of fish and a cool turtle.


The poor turtle had a spot all picked out, and then one of the big nurse sharks apparently decided he wanted her spot and kept inching his way underneath her, nudging her. She did eventually yield and let him have her spot.


The big nurse shark lying on the bottom of the tank didn't move the entire time we were watching him. I'm assuming he was still alive since they left him in the tank, but he sure didn't move. The others were much more active.

Living Planet Aquarium, Part Four--South America Section

The South American section of the aquarium was pretty cool--lots of interesting animals to look at.

Snake...gross!

Gecko.
There's a 13.5 foot anaconda in there--someone thought they were going to keep it as a pet and then realized maybe that wasn't going to work out so well and donated it to the aquarium...really people? Did you think about that at all before you got a snake that can grow to be 24 feet long??
I think that's a spotted manta ray, who gets to hang out with the anaconda.
Piranha--doesn't look too dangerous, does it?

This is the smallest of the crocodile species.
Some big fish.
Some more big fish.
This is a "four-eyed" fish, which actually only has two eyes but the pupils are divided so it can see both above and below the water at the same time.
I think this was the poison dart frog, which is actually only poisonous when it eats a particular plant.

A yellow frog.
Another gross snake.
Some colorful fish.
An electric eel--who gives off a lot of voltage; they said that it the winter, they actually hook him up to a Christmas tree and he provides enough electricity to keep it lit. Cool!

Living Planet Aquarium, Part Three--Random Creatures

There were some pretty interesting animals at the aquarium...

Here we've got some frogs and some pretty big salamanders. If you look closely, you can see a big green salamander hanging out underneath the leaves.
Some little shark thing...which liked cuddling up with an eel, oddly enough.

Pretty fish, with some other sort of eel thing behind it; I kept trying to see the entire eel, but I'm pretty sure the thing didn't move the entire 3.5 hours we were at the aquarium, since he was in the same position every time I checked.

Pretty cool jellyfish.




I can't remember for sure what these are, but they're a bunch of things (possibly jellyfish) upside and moving together.



It's hard to see this, but it's an octopus. Apparently her eyes are very sensitive to light so we couldn't use flash.



Starfish that hangs out with the octopus.



Jellyfish again--these ones change colors in the light, sometimes purple, sometimes pink, etc.


Sea horses...kinda boring but interesting to see how little they are.

Gigantic lobster! He's a big boy!

Cool fish; I couldn't get a clear shot since he kept moving, but I liked all the spikes.

Giant clam! I didn't even know clams could be this big.

Pretty fish.


A funny kind of vertical fish.

Big fish.

Living Planet Aquarium, Part Two--Sting Rays

The aquarium has a little string ray pool, and you can actually touch the sting rays as they swim past, which is a strange sensation. The sting rays get pretty excited sometimes and seem like they're going to flop themselves right out of their pool, especially during feeding time. They were cooler than I thought they'd be.

Living Planet Aquarium, Part One

Back in December, I was talking to a friend about animals, and when asked if I've always liked rabbits, I said that I've always really liked dogs and penguins--and that someday I'd like to be able to pet a penguin. My friend asked if I knew that The Living Planet Aquarium had "penguin encounters" and you could go behind the scenes with the penguins. I totally wanted to check it out, and Adam and I decided that we would do that for our anniversary. We made our reservation (actually for the day before because they were already booked on our anniversary) and then wondered how much time we'd need to look at the other stuff. The aquarium's website says that most groups make it through in 1-2 hours. We figured, you know, being adults and not slowed down by any children, that we'd take about an hour (or less) and do our penguin encounter and be done...and then we go to the aquarium and it was AWESOME and we stayed there for three and a half hours!
So, what did we do for three and a half hours?
Well, we started out looking at some fish...which didn't really impress me that much. But then we got to the otters and they were super cute! There are three otters and they're very fun and playful. They have a "saucer" style sled that they like to flip over in the water and they like to swirl around each other. They kinda seemed like water puppies, because they're super excited and hyper like dogs.
We saw some glow in the dark jelly fish, and an octopus, and some sharks (there were three different varieties). We saw sting rays, and we actually got to touch them! You can take two fingers and gently stroke them as they go by, which is kind of a strange sensation. They're actually pretty interesting to watch because sometimes it looks like they're going to flop themselves out of their pool.
We saw an 13.5 foot anaconda (which someone had as a PET and then realized maybe they didn't want and donated to the aquarium) and piranhas and the smallest member of the crocodile/alligator family.

(That's us in the penguin encounter room.)

After walking through most of the aquarium, it was time for the penguin encounters. The two of us, plus six other people, got to go behind the scenes and see the penguins. We weren't allowed to touch or feed them, but it was still really cool. There's a room that connects to the penguin enclosure and they open that up and let the penguins wander in and out as much as they want. There are 11 Gentoo penguins currently, and I think almost all of them came into the room at some point. One penguin in particular, Sampson, spent a lot of time in the room, and he actually seemed to really like Adam; he kept coming to stand by Adam and would bend down and nibble at his shoelaces and pant leg. It was really funny to see how often he kept coming back--and it was really tempting to reach out and pet him, but I behaved myself. It was really neat to be able to be so close to the penguins and the employee running the encounter shared some pretty cool information about penguins.
When we finished that up, it was just about time for the sting ray feeding, so we decided to stick around for that. The sting rays will come right up along the side of their pool and suck the food out of your hand or off of a feeder. (We didn't pay the extra money to be able to feed them, but it was cool to watch.)
When that was done, it was just about time for the octopus feeding, so we had to stay for that, too, right? Apparently octupi are master escape artists because they can squeeze through any opening larger than their beaks (which are the only hard part of their bodies). This octopus lived up to that, as it tried to crawl up the employee's arm as she was trying to feed it! YUCK! I don't think I ever would want to touch an octopus.
Well, after the octopus feeding, the next thing up was the PENGUIN feeding...and we really had to stay for that. We went back to the penguin area, and the penguins were zooming through the water, jumping in and out of the pool. The employees said that the penguins always get super excited before feeding time, and it was neat to watch. When they fed the penguins, they went nuts again, diving after the fish as they were tossed into the water, and then jumping out to go to the employee who gave fed them individually as well. It was just super fun to watch.
After that, we realized if we didn't want to get stuck in Friday rush hour traffic, we better get out of there, so we left--but I pretty much want my own aquarium now. I'll add pictures and videos as I get them ready, but really, if you are anywhere close to the aquarium, you just need to go visit it for yourself.

Rick Riordan's Visit to the Library

For those of you who saw my Walk Like an Egyptian post and want to know what exactly possessed me to dress in costume and dye my hair black...this is why.
Rick Riordan, author The Lightning Thief and a whole bunch of other fun books, came to visit! We had to host him off-site at a local high school so we could get a larger crowd; max capacity at the Library is about 500, but here we could fit 1500 and I think we were pretty close, at least 1200. Rick was a very engaging presenter and it was so much fun. On the down side, this was such a big event that I didn't even get to meet him, but it was still lots of fun.

This is as close as I got...




Here, Rick shows us a glimpse of his former career as a teacher:


And here we see that his mom saved his first rejection letter:


This might be the coolest part of the night: Rick gave us a chance to hear the opening of his NEXT book to be published, Mark of Athena, which comes out in the fall.



This is another part of his reading.





Here I am with the Library director at the end (almost) of a very busy night!