Since mommy and daddy felt guilty for leaving Alex home on Valentine’s Day (not by himself or anything, but still), the Tarves clan took a trip down to Boston to visit the New England Aquarium. Alex loved the fish so much at the doctor’s office, we thought this would be a great activity for a Friday afternoon.

It started off kinda rough – as Alex decided to have a bit of a diaper blowout, forcing mommy to go through all kinds of contortions to change him in the back seat of the car – but we all had a great time.

The first thing we saw was the jellyfish exhibit that was there for a limited time. Alex really seemed to like watching the jellies float up and down through the water. They had a lot of cool lighting effects that made it a pretty neat exhibit.

The centerpiece of the New England Aquarium is the giant ocean tank with the wraparound ramp that allows you to walk all around the tank, up to the 4th level. In front of that tank is the penguin exhibit. We spent a little time looking at the penguins, and saved the ocean tank for later.

After seeing the penguins, we looked at the smaller tanks, and played in the tidal pool. The tidal pool is where you can touch all kinds of low-maintenance sea life like starfish, clams, and other weird stuff. Mommy picked up a bunch, and made daddy touch them – against his will.

By the time we got around to the ocean tank, Alex was pretty tired. He saw the gigantic sea turtles, the shark, and a huge eel. We took him out of the backpack, and he fell asleep right in mommy’s arms. It was a really awesome day, and Alex seemed to like the tanks that had a lot of bright colors and fast-moving fish (as is to be expected). We will definitely be back there again as he grows up.