Snorkeling with Stingrays at SeaQuest Littleton

Have you ever snorkeled with stingrays before? It sounds a little terrifying doesn't it?  

As scary as it sounds, this is actually how Lola, Mathilde and I spent an afternoon last week, and it was any thing but terrifying. In fact, it wasn't at all scary in the slightest. It was such a magical experience being in the water with these beautiful creatures and we never wanted it to end

Ok, I know what you're thinking... we live in landlocked Colorado. There's no ocean. Where are the stingrays? They're at SeaQuest in Littleton!

SeaQuest Littleton is an interactive aquarium with over 300 species of animals on display. It's not all just sea creatures though, with reptiles, birds, and some furry friends on display too. While most of the animals are just on display for visitors to view, as they would be in any other aquarium or zoo, there are some critter friends that visitors are able to interact with. Visitors can purchase tokens to exchange for food for certain animals including the stingrays, ducks, chickens, rainbow lorikeets and a friendly tortoise. There are also add on activities available such as private tours, going behind the scenes to prepare food for certain animals, and of course, snorkeling with the stingrays.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Visit

Time to get back to posting about my parents' recent visit. They've already been gone over a month. This Summer is just flying by.

You may recall that in previous posts I mentioned that we'd be going to Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was definitely one of the highlights of my parents' visit. We had visited Monterey Aquarium back in 2012 and the girls loved it so we've been keen to head back there again. You can see our previous visit here. It's such a wonderful place to spend a day so I knew that my parents would enjoy it too.

Vancouver Aquarium

One of the girls' favourite places that we visited in Canada was Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. Both Ava and Lola are pretty obsessed with sea creatures so I knew that the aquarium would be a big hit with them.

There were plenty of familiar sea creatures to see and a few that we hadn't seen before, including our new favourite, the beluga whale. Beluga. I love that word!

First up for the day was the beluga whale show. The keepers demonstrated how they interact with these majestic creatures on a regular basis, explained how these whales came to be at the aquarium and taught us a little about their environment, the perils they face in the wild and the research that is being done to learn more about them. 

The beluga whale show

Snow and Reindeer in San Francisco

Christmas may be over for another year (in fact, it's already new year!) but our advent calendar still had one more activity for the girls. Some time in the week before Christmas the advent calendar's activity for the day was "Visit the reindeer at California Academy of Science". Unfortunately we were a little busy with Christmas preparations so we had to put our visit off until the end of last week. On Friday we made the most of our annual membership and visited the Academy one last time for the year.

That place has got to be one of our favourite destinations for an afternoon of exploration - especially during the holiday season. Snow flurries in the Piazza and live reindeer in the East Garden are just a part of the 'Tis the Season for Science exhibit - our favourite parts no less!

The girls were enchanted by the snow flurries in the Piazza. Ava worked out pretty quickly that the "snow" was really just some sort of soap foam (shampoo according to her) but she still enjoyed it none the less - although she refused to try and catch it on her tongue like Lola and their friend Solly!

Here's a look at the kids enjoying the flurries...

Ava, Lola and Solly in a flurry of snow

Monterey Bay Aquarium

My list of places to take the kids in the Bay Area has some pretty cool destinations on it: farms, museums, playgrounds, galleries... There is one place on the list however that we anticipated visiting more than anywhere else; Monterey Bay Aquarium.

From a young age Ava has been enthralled by anything to do with life under the sea. When she was two years old we visited Underwater World in Queensland and instantly she was hooked on anything and everything fishy.

During Ava's recent Spring Break we took a trip down south to beautiful seaside Monterey. The big drawcard there being the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Monterey Bay Aquarium from one of the viewing decks

California Academy of Sciences

We visited California Academy of Sciences back in December just a few days before Christmas.
I had been eager to visit the Academy before the end of the year due to a few special Christmassy themed exhibits. A visit to the Academy was one of the featured activities on the girls' advent calendar.

Now, we had actually attempted to visit the Academy back in November when we spent an afternoon in Golden Gate Park. However it was Thanksgiving long weekend and it was extremely busy. Plus a surcharge during busy holiday periods pushed the ticket price up to $35.00 for adults and $25.00 for children making for one very expensive afternoon.

Surprisingly, when we visited the Academy two days before Christmas it wasn't as busy as I had expected. I guess everyone was busy with Christmas preparations. I booked our tickets online to avoid the queues and even managed to find a coupon for a discount. Got to love retailmenot.com :)

Kim and the girls with Claude the Alligator