Baltimore Trip

Friday and Saturday we headed up to Baltimore to visit the aquarium and children’s museum. Overall the trip went great and Owen adapted to everything really well. We got up there late morning and headed over to the aquarium. We didn’t have too much time before the dolphin show but enough to see the frog exhibits. Right away Owen was interested. He kept pulling himself up so he could see the frogs better.

Then we headed into the dolphin show. We had to wait for about 20 minutes before the show actually started, but with snack in hand Owen munched away and watched the dolphins swim around. He was having a great time until the announcer made the crowd get really loud and startled Owen. He stood up and came and climbed in my lap where he remained while watching the show. We think he enjoyed the show, but not nearly as much as the rest of the aquarium. He watched with a very serious face at what the dolphins were doing and would occasionally clap and smile.

We got lucky and our hotel gave us a very early check-in so we were able to have Owen actually nap in a crib; we also got to sit back and relax. We were plesantly surprised but Owen took a great nap. And when he woke we headed straight back to the aquarium where we did the rest and much more fun part. The first tank we saw was the one with a couple sharks, and Owen gave a big smile. Owen ran right up to the tanks and got up on the steps so he could see better. He really liked to talk about the colors of the fish and even tried to count some at one tank. He got the concept of moving on to the next tank, but there were some he just wanted to stay and explore.

He got very excited when he got to see the crocodile, even clapped for him. And every time we would get ready to go to the next level he would want to be held up to see the big tank in the beginning from above. He would ask “turtle?”; he definitely related this tank to the one turtle in there. Every time we would stand and wait for the turtle to come, and luckily he came.

By far, the most exciting part for Owen was the spiral shark tanks. When we started the descent, he was calmly walking down and then he spotted the big cut-outs of sharks and kept screaming in excitement “sharks, sharks!” and began to run down the ramps. He could not get there fast enough. The shark tank area is really dark so hard to get good pictures but just imagine big eyes and smiles. He had no problems when they would swim right up to us and actually wanted to keep following the sharks to the next window. To get him to leave we had to actually say bye to the sharks.

The rest of the evening went pretty well and of course he took his sharks with him to bed. We stayed at the Brookshire Suites and they have a complimentary breakfast with Mr. Bite (shark mascot) who comes and visits with all the kids. It was great. He walked up to Owen and he just lit up, huge smile and tried to hand the shark the empty Cheerio box.

We took a nice stroll around the harbor and looked at the boats. Owen liked to talk about the water and birds the most. We then headed over to Port Discovery Children’s Museum. Owen had a great time running around and exploring all the different rooms. The museum is definitely geared toward older children but he had fun playing with the train, balls, letters, and water legos. To get him to leave a room so we could see what else there was, we had to tell him we’d go see the train again. He left every time and the big wooden train was obviously the big hit here.

As planned we left for his nap and he fell right to sleep, he didn’t stay asleep as long as I hoped but did sleep for a little over and hour and once we got home the lack of sleep didn’t seem to faze him. I really think he was just happy to be back home with his toys. Nothing like the comfort of home. He slept in this morning, always nice, and he started to ask for his sharks when he woke. I think the trip went great and we all had a wonderful time.

You can either view the slideshow below or Click Here to view the pictures yourself (they will be larger this way).

Vodpod videos no longer available. from picasaweb.google.com