Atlanta is only an hour and a half away from where we were staying in Alabama, so on the Monday after the wedding, I planned a day trip for us to go there to visit the Georgia Aquarium and Legoland.
The plan was to be at the aquarium when it opened at 9am, and we started out strong that morning. We pulled out of the parking lot of our hotel at 7:15, just like I wanted, and I was mentally giving myself high fives for getting everybody ready and on the road on time. Then Ila chugged an entire bottle of orange juice in 10 minutes for some reason, we had to stop twice for her to go to the bathroom, and then somewhere along our drive, Dustin told me to look at the clock, and I noticed we lost an entire hour because I FORGOT ALLLL about the effing TIME CHANGE!!!! So it was more like 10:30 when we finally walked through the aquarium doors.
But oh my goodness, the aquarium was amazing!!!! I actually feel like it would be pointless for our family to ever go to another aquarium ever again, because it would just be a let down after seeing this one. The Georgia Aquarium is the biggest aquarium in the U.S., the 4th biggest in the world, and the only aquarium in the Western Hemisphere to have whale sharks.
And seriously, standing in the tunnel and watching the giant whale sharks swim over you was WOW!!!
James was not about to stop looking at the fish and turn around for a picture for me.
Even though we got a later start than I wanted that day, we hit it hard once we were there - the ocean exhibit, the tropical fish exhibit, the cold water exhibit, the river exhibit, the dolphin tank, the dolphin 4D movie, the sea lion show. The best thing we did there though (in my opinion) was take the Behind the Scenes Tour. We got to see the pump rooms, the labs, the operating and medical rooms for the sick animals, and we got to see the tropical fish exhibit and the ocean exhibit from the TOP. That was incredible! We were soooo close to the whale sharks as they swam by.
the top of one of the tropical fish tanks
one of the pump rooms
animal operating room
the lab
the top of the ocean exhibit
a whale shark swimming by
a whale shark swimming by
The highlight of the day for James was the tropical fish exhibit. Holy moly, when he saw the clownfish and blue tang, he about lost it. He started running, jumping, and screaming, "NEMO! NEMO! NEMO! DORY! NEMO! DORY! DORY!" And then grabbing my face to make sure I was paying attention to him and screaming again, "NEMO! NEMO! NEMO!" And running to bang on the glass and screaming again, "DORY! DORY! DORY!" He did not stop shouting "NEMO! DORY!" the entire time that we were in the tropical fish exhibit. It was adorable. He was so dang happy.
omg, it's DORYYYY!
We spent about six hours at the aquarium, and we could've stayed longer, there was still so much to do, and looking back, I wish we would've stayed and watched more shows. Butttt...
When planning this trip, I googled "Best things for kids to do in Atlanta" and read several articles. Every. single. one. listed Legoland as a must-see. So I was just like, "Cool! There's a Legoland in Atlanta!", and without looking into it further, I planned for us to go there after the aquarium.
It consisted of two rides (they sucked), an area set up with lego tables, and an indoor jungle gym. James was free, but it cost the rest of us $30 each to get in. So $120 for our family to go there. Oh yeah, there was a gift shop, of course. They begged for something, so I told them that they could each pick out a lego set, and duh, we paid about triple the cost that we would've paid for the exact same stuff at Wal-Mart.
IN MY OPINION, we could've gone to Chick-fil-a, let the kids play in the play space there, and then bought them some legos from Wal-Mart and had the exact same experience for way cheaper.
IN MY KIDS' OPINIONS, it was AMAZING. Ila and James ran all over that jungle gym and went down the slide approximately 1000 times. Eden had a blast building lego cars and then racing them down the track. They thought the sucky rides were SO COOL!
James would NOT go near Lego-Man.
And at the end of the day, that's all that matters I suppose. The day was for them, and they thought it was the best day ever, Legoland included. (But we will never go there again.)
I rate the Georgia Aquarium about 5 million stars though! That was seriously incredible!
After Legoland, we drove back to Alabamia and ate dinner at Bow & Arrow, Caleb's restaurant. My cousin Jonathan and his wife and kids met us there and we had a fun evening eating wonderful food and visiting with them. Bow & Arrow was absolutely delicious, but that's not surprising at all seeing all the success Caleb has had in the food world!
I do not know how people manage to take good food pictures. I always manage to make my food look unappetizing, but I promise this was amazing! I got brisket, hash brown casserole, collard greens, tortillas, a watermelon margarita, and banana pudding.
back at the hotel with their souvenirs from the day :)
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