Shark bait, hoo ha ha

The aquarium is one of the boys favorite parts of vacation. Andy and I were extremely impressed by how much they remembered about it from last year. And yes, we did see "Nemo"...you should have heard Zachary shout that when we got to the clown fish!

One of the best things about the Mystic Aquarium is that your tickets are good for the two consecutive days following the day you initially visit. We learned this last year and scheduled this years visit around being able to go twice. It makes for a much more relaxing time when you don't have to worry about seeing everything in one trip.

We arrived our first day just in time for the sea lion show. It was a big hit with both boys last year...and this year as well. As a matter of fact, Zachary (and Daddy) went to see it both days. (The fact that he likes it so much amazes me a little because he won't go near the sea lions that live outside because he thinks they are too loud. He stands way back and complains...loudly...until we finally move on.)

The second thing we had to do was go climb down into the submersible. (It's positioned so that it's more or less under the floor.) They talked about getting to do this pretty much the entire way from the beach house to the aquarium!

I just had to share this shot. The penguins come right up to where you are standing. It's pretty cool, in my humble opinion!

It seriously seemed like this penguin came over just to say hi to the boys. He was that interactive!

How could we not take a picture with the marsh sign!

Zachary just did not want to have his picture taken but Jacob was in love with all of the things related to the sharks so I had to include this photo.

I'm impressed with all of the new things Jacob is trying lately. Here he and Andy are trying to pet the rays. Unfortunately, one never got close enough to his hand but he stood there quite a while trying. Last year, he wouldn't even consider it. (Andy was able to put his hand in deeper and actually touched two.)

They just love the interactive displays!

We love that the aquarium has an area where kids can handle several different types of sea creatures. Jacob braves the cold water to touch a spider crab.

We were pretty surprised when Zachary decided to give it a try as well. This empty shell was his favorite. He didn't touch anything alive...although he'd swear that he did.

The much more daring older brother...this shell actually has something alive in it!

Fascinated by the rays. Jacob was really observant and remarked, "Gee, I didn't know they had mouths on the bottom." Honestly, neither did I!

Again little one refused to be in the picture. Part of the problem was that he wanted to get inside this sub...which is not an option!

They did settle for "manning the controls" for a few minutes. Thankfully, they didn't really do anything.

One last trip through the tunnels before we left.