Fish or Foe?

In an attempt to cross one more item off of our baby bucket list, Finley and I went to the New England Aquarium downtown. Dan's company did some work on the aquarium last year (built a new marine mammal center and continued the Harbor Walk along the waterfront) and a co-worker kindly gave us a free pass to use for a visit. I love aquariums, but free aquariums are even better! Last summer we when to see the new exhibit space open when I was pregnant so it was fun to go back with Finley this summer.

I checked the stroller in the main lobby and off we went! The Amazing Jellies jellyfish exhibit is pretty neat, so we walked down the stairs to see it. The halls are dark and the tank are lit up, so I thought Finley would enjoy the whole scene, but I was wrong! We got close to one tank and he tightened his grasp on me and let out a little yelp. I backed up and continued to walk through the hall and stopped at another tank. I turned so Finley could see the moon jellies and again he got nervous and this time he screamed!! Talk about natural instinct, right?

I whisked him upstairs to the giant tank in the main area of the museum and thankfully, he was much more relaxed about the fish, sting rays, turtles, etc. He down right enjoyed it! The giant ocean tank has lots of little portals to hang out in and Finley could stand or sit right up next to the tank. He watched as things swam by and even tried to reach out and grab a few! We followed the tank all the way up to the top and then began our way back down, stopping to look in the portals when something interesting appeared--like the giant turtle, an eel, and a shark!

There are some smaller tanks there, too, and some were at a perfect level for a boy Finley's size. Not surprisingly, Finley was often more interested in the other aquarium patrons than any of the fish.

Sadly, I didn't think the "touch tank" was ready for us (maybe next year!) so we wandered outside to the marine mammal pool to see some seals and sea lions. Back inside, the penguins were fun to watch, especially when they raced past us underwater.

We stopped to have lunch before we left and while Finley was very hungry, he was tough to feed since he preferred to check out all the people coming and going in the cafeteria.

Before it was time to go, we went back to the jellyfish because I was curious if Finley would freak out again or if he'd be okay with them now. Well, Finley's clearly afraid of jellyfish because he reacted the same way as before. How odd! We got our stroller and rolled over to the seal tank out front. All of the seals were racing around upside down in the water, I'd never seen anything like it! Finley was quite happy chewing on his stroller ring, but when one of the bigger seals swam by he certainly sat up and took notice!

It was such a great day out (all the more lovely after 3 rainy days), we had to check out the Greenway and Fanueil Hall. The big fountain was in full effect so we sat and watched for a while. Finley was intrigued and while I wasn't quite ready for both of us to get soaked, next summer we'll be all over it!

Finley fell asleep on the stroller ride back to the car, but chatted away in the car as we headed home. Definitely one of our best summer adventures, thank you Turner for the free ticket and thank you weather gods for the gorgeous day!