Ocean World

We went to Ocean World this morning to have a fun day with our kids.  I know that Kennedy looks terrified in this picture, but I assure you she had a blast.  This aquarium in Crescent City, CA is small, but for how little it had, it was pretty cool stuff.  Our first stop (after the gigantic gift shop where Kennedy stuffed toys in the stroller while we weren't looking) was the tide pool where we could pet the animals in the water.

Kennedy loved petting the starfish.  She was even brave enough to touch an anenome!  The other little girl on the tour screamed every time she saw anything, so I was pretty proud of Kennedy.  Although Noah didn't pet anything, he did try to eat a starfish.

Then our guide asked for a brave volunteer.  After seeing what this guy had to do, I'm really glad it wasn't me.  He was asked to feel the sting of an anenome, but because they can't sting through our skin, he had to put his tongue on it.  And he did.

Yuck.  And just so we could take his word for it that his tongue got tingly.  Do you know how many people's tongues have been on that thing?  I'm sure it's clean, but I won't be licking an sea creatures any time soon.  Just so you have a better idea, he licked one of these.

Once again, yuck.  We went to see the actual aquarium part of the place next, which was definitely limited.  They had some fish, and a bunch of manta rays, including a baby which was really cute.  They did however have TONS of sharks.

There are 7 in this picture, and that wasn't anywhere near all the ones they had.  We even got to pet a couple of sharks after looking at them in the tanks.

I caught the fin on this one, and it was a lot harder than I expected.  They didn't feel very slippery either like you would expect.

Even though Kennedy had no problem touching starfish and anenomes, she wanted nothing to do with the sharks.  I think her face sums it up pretty well.

We had to take the obligatory picture in the shark's mouth.

There were also two harbor seals and a sea lion who did tricks.  She impersonated a shark and a dolphin, went down slides, jumped really high, and did double back flips.  Afterward, Kennedy wanted to ride on the jet ski ride out front, and she actually let Noah sit with her.

And of course we couldn't leave without getting a picture of Noah surfing.