Living Planet Aquarium

We had to make yet another quick trip to Utah. My brother received a phone call from his wife that her mother was passing away. So we crammed his three boys and my three youngest kids into the car and drove through the night. When we got to Utah Tuesday morning we stopped in to see Mary so the kids could say goodbye to their grandmother. It was such a sweet moment and I'm having a hard time holding back tears as I type this. After they said their goodbyes my mom and I took all the kids down to stay at Hillary's. After a while we decided the kids needed to get out so we went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. It was really fun and it was just what the kids needed.

Bethany, Me, Josh, Ian, Davis, Joe, Brevin, Valerie, Timmy, Grandma Lay, and Sam.

Bevin, Brent's oldest, was so much help. I love that he is so good with the younger kids!

The first part of the aquarium was Discovering Utah. Hillary said we had to do this part first because it was boring!!
She was right....there was a lot of trout and salamanders. It wasn't too bad though, I got to tell my kids about growing up with the salamanders in my window well. The older kids thought that was pretty cool.

The second part was the ocean explorer. This was pretty neat.
I especially loved this octopus hanging upside down.

Towards the end of the ocean explorer there was an open tank where the kids could pet sting rays. At first I thought no way those are dangerous. I'm pretty sure that's what killed the crocodile hunter....anyway there they were and the kids had a great time petting them.

Sam just really liked the water. I'm not so sure Brevin really liked getting wet though!

The tiger shark in the shark tank.

The last part was the journey to South America. This was my favorite.
I had to get this picture of Brevin with the piranhas because my oldest who is the same age as Brevin is fascinated by them so I had to prove to him that I had actually seen a real live piranha.

They also had really cool looking frogs and snakes. Of course the boys were in heaven!!

The penguins were a lot of fun to watch dive in and out of the water.

Even though it was another sad trip it was fun to be with family again. Hopefully next time we go it will just be to have fun and nothing more!