My Good Days

Good days are usually measured by what we can get done. When we can run multiple errands without the children breaking down or do several loads of laundry without leaving one in the washer overnight by mistake... you get the idea.
But on other good days I get to take a step back and see how my kids are growing and getting along and just bask in the fact that I am doing what I love.
Yesterday was a good day from the latter category. Honestly, I didn't even get out of my sweats (gotta love the new trend to wear yoga pants everywhere), but I took the kids to the Aquarium and we had one of the best visits since we started going there in January.
We got rock star parking--a good sign of things to come--and cruised right in. We went right to Toby's favorite exhibit, where he gets to touch sting rays. There were no other guests at the pool, so Toby could maneuver around the whole thing to get the best spot. While we were standing there with our hands in the water two rays and a small shark just swam by and rubbed up against our hands. So all three of us got to touch them! Norah was a little overwhelmed, but when we were leaving the tent she said "Bye!" to all the rays and sharks. Toby, as always, said it was his favorite part of the day.
We went inside and had the place to ourselves. We took our time through the exhibits and I didn't have to worry about losing the kids. We went to the Discovery lab area where Toby held a sea star, several crabs, and even got the volunteer to bring up a horseshoe crab for us to touch. So cool!
As we cruised around the place it was so fun to watch both kids enjoy all the colorful fish and other sea life. Outside we watched a little bit of the beluga whale feeding and then moved on to the sea lion and penguin areas. All five female sea lions were actively swimming and playing, which is something I haven't seen in all my visits there (except when we see the sea lion show, which we skipped this time). The humongous male sea lion was sun bathing in his enclosure so we got to see him close up, another first. Almost all of the penguins were out of the water and it was so cute to hear Norah try to say penguin. We also saw turtles, frogs, and fish along the boardwalk between the main building and the penguin exhibit.
I have to admit, I had low expectations for both the aquarium and my kids for this visit, mostly because it's the off season and because I wasn't sure how long the kids would last. I was pleasantly surprised on both accounts, and we ended up having a very good day.