Mother's Day

This Mother's Day I got up and Kyle told me to get ready because we were all gonna go out.  He gave absolutely no details as to where we were going however.  The weather was rainy and dreary, and Hawaii rarity, so I knew the beach was out of the question.  The kids and I got ready while Kyle got his hair cut and then we headed out to my Mother's Day surprise.  We drove down the Pali Highway but that didn't expose any details since we take that highway to go pretty much anywhere in Honolulu.  I continued to wonder where we were going until Alec yelled out that he had seen the one of the places where he had gone on a field trip.  That's when I realized where were going for the day...the Waikiki Aquarium!  I had wanted to go to this aquarium since we had been to the one in North Carolina several times while living there and I imagined that this one must be exponentially better than the river fish in those tanks.  This aquarium came with hand held speakers that were like your own personal tour guide.  We could just punch in a number to the display we were looking at if we wanted to know more about the fish and voila, tour guide on demand!  I just completed a paper on coral reefs a couple weeks ago so I found I already knew a lot of the information given for the coral in the displays but it was still neat to see what I did so much research on.  It was amazing how much a movie like Finding Nemo could influence what the kids recognized in the tanks.  While they didn't know the actual types of fish, "Nemo", "Marlin", "Dory", "Gill" and "Bloat" were all in attendance at the aquarium. 

"Nemo" and "Marlin" in their sea anemone

"Dory"

All four of us enjoyed roaming around the exhibits and learning facts about the fish that live in the ocean around us.  Hailey really loved the jellyfish.  I think it had something to do with the fact that they were glowing purple in the tank.

When we got to the shark tank I was shocked to see one of the biggest fish I had ever seen!  This fish was as big as the kids and just floated in one spot in the tank in front of them.  No wonder it was in the same tank with the fish because there is no way those sharks would mess with these fish!

We made it through the indoor exhibits and thankfully it had stopped raining long enough for us to enjoy the outdoor ones.  This is where the best fish in the world resides, the fantastic, humuhumunukunukuapua'a.  This is the Hawaii state fish and much smaller than I had pictured in my head.  Its name means triggerfish with a snout like a pig which makes it even better in my eyes.  After my favorite fish we watched a lonely Hawaiian monk seal swim laps in its pool by itself.  We actually got lucky enough to see it swim around because before we walked over it had been hanging out by the side of the tank.

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

It wasn't the biggest aquarium we have ever been to but because we live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it has some pretty cool fish and sea creatures.  We even got a new family photo taken. 

After the aquarium we went to Chili's for lunch.  All in all I would have to say that it was a wonderful Mother's Day spent with the family and Kyle did a wonderful job at surprising me (as usual).