Baby Teddy,  Family,  Texas,  Travel & Places

Birthday Fun at the Texas State Aquarium

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For Forest’s birthday we spent most of the morning at the Texas State Aquarium. I hadn’t been since I was a teenager, about 20 years ago, and during that time period went two or three times. I had vague memories of it but couldn’t quite recall everything about it. It appeared based on the website that the aquarium had more attractions but it was also working on an upgrade to the facilities. When we actually arrived to the aquarium I began remembering more about it, recalling that I had been to some of the features before and that definitely some of it was new. They are working to upgrade to include a rainforest exhibit, my guess to compete with Moody Gardens in Galveston.

We got in half price with our Houston Zoo membership so that was nice because overall I think we were a little disappointed in the aquarium. It wasn’t bad it just wasn’t as interesting as I think we were hoping it would be. We were also looking at it through the lens of being adults instead of kids or teenagers. Chris and I were both ‘meh’ on the dolphin show with both of us agreeing that marine mammal shows have definitely lost their allure over the years. I keep trying to think of what aquarium I’ve been to that I have loved and so far I can only think that I remember really loving the Baltimore Aquarium. The Georgia Aquarium was nice but even I remember being not as impressed despite how that aquarium is touted. I’d like to revisit the Baltimore Aquarium to see how my memory holds up to its actual quality.

That said, we did have fun at the aquarium and it was Forest’s birthday and he loves fish and just about any animal so we knew he would enjoy the aquarium. He definitely did because it was non-stop ‘oooh’ and ‘oh oh’ for the first part of the visit. The outside attractions were a little harder to enjoy with the heat and humidity but we did have fun! We originally intended to eat lunch at the aquarium but opted later to find something afterward, though we did end up sitting inside the cafe to cool off and split something for a snack to stave off hunger. Forest wanted to nurse and I couldn’t find anywhere that I felt comfortable nursing so we snuck to the second floor and found a little library and nook. Of course once we got there he didn’t want to nurse and wanted to take all of the books off the shelf. Later we ended up back at the car to cool off and nurse because he expressed renewed interest and then we changed to head to the splash pad. Unfortunately we wern’t at the splash pad long before it was closed for cleaning because of a poop accident with another kid. That was probably for the best so we cut out and found an Olive Garden for lunch.

It was a great diversion from our beach days and brought back a lot of memories for me from being a kid and having a lot of my marine biology interests spurred from those visits to the aquarium.

Oh, that photo with the ‘Oil and Water’ and the guy holding the sheepshead…well, I saw it on the display and thought, “Man that guy really looks like Pure Florida!” Sure enough I glance at the credit and it is him! Talk about a weird place to recognize someone from the internet!

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