A Day at the Aquarium

Today is my Mom's birthday. For more on that check out my sisters blog here. Today was also the day that we got to preview the new 'California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. They have been building it for several years (see here) and it is scheduled to open to the public on September 27th. We scheduled this trip a few weeks ago when my Mom was supposed to be in trial; but, luckily she didn't have to be in trial after all and so she got to come with us on her birthday.


This is the Coral Reef Garden. The window into the tank is HUGE! There was also a great echo there that the kids enjoyed.
Here are JJ and Kaylee standing in front of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton.
Here is the White Alligator. I saw one a long time ago at the San Francisco Zoo as a traveling exhibit. This guy is going to be a permanent addition to the Aquarium here.
Here Audrey is checking out one of the hundreds of fish tanks.
This is a tunnel under the Amazon Rainforest tank. The kids loved this one. The fish were right there.

I don't know what these little guys were doing, but they were sure cute doing it.
And for those of you that remember the old California Academy of Sciences they still have the hall full of stuffed animals (not the kind that you would want on your bed at night though). There is also a fantastic planetarium that we couldn't go in until the official opening. The kids liked the projection of the earth that they were displaying on a huge wall. Lookout Google Earth.

All in all it was a very fun day. We went for three hours and it was plenty of time. I recommend it to anyone who comes to town. The only thing that would have made the day even more complete is if we could have gone to Fenton's (according to Audrey).