Shark Week!

We had tentative plans to head north to King's Island today, but those were dashed when Shayne and Cassie opted out.

Instead, we parked ourselves on the couch for a couple hours and soaked in some good old fashioned SHARK WEEK!

I love... shark week.
So does Sydni.

Appropriately so, we decided to take a trip south to Newport, to the aquarium, to see some of this week's celebrities up close and personal.

but first... a turtle shell! 

creature of the hour
[sorry about the photo quality; the real camera stayed @ home]

shark ray

my little half shark ♥

For the most part, there can only be so many different pictures from the same aquarium, so we didn't spend an exorbitant amount of time today hovering around each exhibit... just some of our favorites.

jellies' tank

sydni named this one "brain jelly" 

My personal favorite from the afternoon:

a puffer and my favorite hands? yes, please! 

syd's favorite

And lastly, on to the baddest boy in the wetlands: Mighty Mike! 

awh. jussa wittle guyyyy... 

or maybe a bit bigger than that. 

ok, maybe a lot bigger.
.. sizing up to mighty mike! 

albino alligator on the way out ;) 

We followed the aquarium with dinner [& of course breadsticks] at the Olive Garden before coming back home. These no-agenda Sundays are my favorites, and to spend them with my favorites -- including Shark Week -- is more than I could ask for.

See ya on the work side tomorrow!

xo | cmd

Newport Aquarium & Stanbery Park

We had a blast today.
Between Nana & Pappy's visit with us to the Newport Aquarium, followed by lunch and a romp in the park, we are a tuckered-out little duo.

I gave the D90 some exercise today as we journied through the land of fishies, sharks & all things quirky at the aquarium.

Here's that story:


rawr.

^ We'll start with the first reason Sydni was excited to get to the NA today. Haha. My four-year-old wanted to see the sharks. I'm thankful that we're past the phase of being terrified by them swimming up to the glass, so I gladly embraced her request to stand in the water tunnels for ten minutes each. Hah.

shark rays

more sharks & shark-esque creatures..

We found some divers in the shark tanks..

up close & personal

.. so Sydni wanted to give it a whirl.

shark petting

^ Close enough. Haha. We'll take an actual dive with some swimmers when she gets the hang of the whole swimming thing herself. We're super close, but just not quite there yet.

lionfish

My personal favorites - pufferfish!

awhhh ;)

We found beautiful creatures everywhere. There were dots, spots, stripes, squiggles and all kinds of other patterns. 

spots & patterns everywhere!

And things that glowed in the dark..

jellyfish gardens!

And things that live in the dark... which, btw NA, you may want to move the No Flash Photography sign a bit lower... Luckily I knew this but there were plenty of folks today that certainly didn't see it. Poor octopus :/

octopus!

We saw some distant relatives, too - some who travel by land, and some by sea.

shelled beauties!

.. And some who do both (:


emperor penguins

taking a break to photograph a couple humans on the adventure

There's always of course at least one celebrity:

"mighty mike"

^ We found a sun-bathing groupie croc on the upper deck of Mighty Mike's tank; Mighty Mike is the 800-lb, 14-ft-long alligator who travels to various aquariums for us to admire. Sydni is about the size of his head. Crazy!

my girl ♥

I snagged at least one picture with mini before we called it a day at the aquarium. Our next stop was lunch at Bar Louie and then on home to unwind for a little bit before my parents had to head back home. The weather forecast has been buzzing with nothing but warnings for this impending winter storm, so Nana & Pappy made sure to get their driving out of the way before it all started to settle in. We'll see them again soon.

To ease the abrupt absence of Nana & Pappy, Sydni and I decided to squeeze just a little more juice out of the beautiful weather. We trekked the whole mile or so up the road to the park and spent the last few hours of daylight romping around the playground.

she's so busy!

love. those. smiles.

I have no complaints on the day, other than selfishly,  I wish Rob had been here to enjoy it all with us. There will be plenty of others, though. (:

From us to you, happy weekend!!!

i love you, forever & ever.

xo | cmd

Memorial Day, 2013

beautiful.

 It's Memorial Day, and I wanted to make sure that in the midst of aaaallll the fun we've had this weekend, that we payed homage to the most important part of it all. This was the second half of the day, but I'm sharing it first because it's the most important. When I posted this picture, I captioned it:

"I know she's little, but she will know about those who gave what they did so that she could have what she does. For those who gave ALL, and for all who we pray won't have to, THANK YOU. Happy Memorial Day."

I couldn't help but just sit and look at her, as she knelt patiently beside the rows of crosses, each individually tagged in remembrance of a soldier who never came home. She seemed to realize that it was something important, even though she doesn't grasp the gravity of it all just yet. She will one day, and I'll do everything I can to make sure she understands just how thankful we should all be, not just on Memorial Day, but every day. So to all of the men, women and families who have given to keep us safe and free, thank you.

Rewind now to the beginning of the day, which equaled Sydni and I taking a trip down to the Newport Aquarium! I honestly can't remember off the top of my head actually going to the NA ever before, although I'm sure we did, so it was something of an adventure for both of us.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

[MORE] Picture time!:

sharks!

my personal favorite : puffers :)

animal time

After the joy of the aquarium, we did lunch and a mini photo shoot to cap it off at Bar Louie at the Levee. I realized as soon as we ordered our food that I had meant to take us to Tom & Chee, but having been away from the Levee for a few years now, I completely forgot it was down there. Until today. Noted. Haha.

mini time ♥

Aquarium, lunch & some light errands completed, I toted a very sleepy Sydni back to Becky's for a short nap [or at least an attempt at such], before we refreshed and headed to the park for a little while before I dropped her back off.

I can't even convey in words how much I enjoyed this weekend with Sydni. I was thoroughly bummed that Rob wasn't be able to join all of us.. since it's a holiday and everyone had planned to be out and about, there was nobody left to watch the dogs at Rob's house, so he was tethered there. We were both pretty disappointed, but I have no doubt we'll make up for it as soon as possible. Syd asked about him all weekend long, and I've promised her that we'll all hang out again together very soon. He did send me a snapshot of his day though.... remember our trip to Ikea?

Looks like it's turning into useable furniture ;) So much for me lending a hand to get this built... I guess that happens though from being so far away. Oh well. I'm happy at least that I have a man who can put this kinda stuff together without killing himself or the next person to sit on it. Haha. Small silver linings.

I'm back at Becky's now, winding down for the night and kiiiiind of not looking forward to work tomorrow. It's not my job or the people, definitely not... it's just the whole principle of going back to work again after an amazing weekend, haha. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Oh well. I hope you had an incredible holiday weekend, too, friends!

xo | cmd