Visit to the National Aquarium in Baltimore

While in Baltimore, we took Sophie to the National Aquarium. We know she likes fish (partly because of her love of Finding Nemo), but I was surprised at how engaged she was. We were there for about 3 hours, which is a long time in the world of a toddler. At the beginning she really watched the fish, but toward the end, she enjoyed just running from exhibit to exhibit. The fun thing, though, was that we asked her what she saw at the aquarium a few days later, and she came up with "Nemo," "sharks" and "fishies." She's been remembering her experiences lately, and has been able to express herself when asked about them. (She also gave us a list of her favorite foods recently: eggs, strawberries, broccoli.)

The first thing we found when we walked in were giant bubble tubes. She had fun watching the bubbles and playing with the tubes:



Her favorite exhibit, hands down, was watching the sharks. There was one shark swimming around in the sting ray pool:


And in the actual shark exhibit, there were cutouts of sharks. She really enjoyed them and insisted on going up to each one to touch it.

Here are some shots of her with the fish:





And some shots with Ian, Aunt Heather and I:

And finally, at the end of the visit, we went to the store. She enjoyed wearing her penguin hat around.
And here she is sitting in a big girl chair having a snack after our long afternoon: