A Titanicologist in the making

No hanging around in bed thinking about what to do on this Fun Friday. R woke me up bright and early to have me get ready for the Mystic Aquarium. He wondered if a "Titanicologist" is what he is becoming.

After getting dressed, I prepared and served breakfast, prepared and packed lunch, and prepared and threw dinner into the crockpot. We stopped at the library for the discount pass and were off. It's amazing that no one asked for the DVD player since it is over an hour away, but R wanted to listen to Dragon Rider and E was just fine with that. E made it all the way to the aquarium without getting bored.

We arrived just in time to see the sea lion show. Then we headed right back out to the car for lunch. When we came back in, we went straight for the Titanic exhibit. On the way we were sidetracked by the new XD Theater. R is always the one I have to worry about with these things, but it was E who got thrown off by the 3D monster in the sea. He was fine with the moving seats, but he took off his glasses and shut his eyes for the last 20 seconds of the show. When we exited into the Titanic exhibit he was still pretty stressed about it all, as you can see above. I didn't realize how stressed until he burst out crying right after this picture, poor thing. He always recovers quickly though, and did this time too.

Above, the boys are standing in front of the giant model that R loves. To be honest, the exhibit was a great place to start learning about Titanic last year, but we are now Titanicologists and this was all old news. One cool display though was the one which shows the depth of the bottom of the ocean. It was good to have a reference. The top is the boat, the second level is how far down divers can go. The third level is how far down submarines can go...etc. It also showed how bioluminescent creatures live down on the bottom where it's so deep. And finally, on the very bottom was drawn the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building so viewers could see how truly deep the water is. Both boys had one of those aha moments.

We watched the penguins be fed, which is always fun. And spent some time looking at the Beluga Whales. And more time than usual at the touch tank since E is finally getting old enough to enjoy it. The Amazon exhibit also kept our interest for a while. Eventually though, an afternoon snack became the pressing issue, so we called it a day and headed home. I was thrilled to make it away without having to stop in all the boutiques at Mystic Village next door. They remembered the candy store, but agreed to skip it without any argument at all. You can check out more photos from our day by clicking on the link on the right.

On the way home E stayed interested in the audio book until we were just 10 minutes away from home. I'm so glad he's able to maintain his attention now. He's also paying attention to all the explanations which I read to R in the exhibits, and even asking me to read some of them to him.

When we got home we cleaned out the car and the boys ran outside for some socialization. Boy 140 miles makes for a long day; I sure am glad I filled that crockpot this morning.