Newport Aquarium (with LOTS of pics)

I'm shocked that Blogger let me upload all of these pics. So, if you're one of those people that jumps from blog to blog just to look at pics, then stop and stay awhile.

To say that I took lots of pics is an understatement. There some pics that I deleted right away because they were too blurry. But on to the story of Saturday.

I started out by getting up at the usual time, as if it were a week day and I had to go to work. Got a shower, got the girls up, and went to get Katie's friend Taylor that was going with us. From there, I had an 8 am appointment to get my tires replaced, 'cause they needed it. I think I kinda freaked the guys out at the tire shop, 'cause I sat down in the waiting area and worked on my sock while the girls played video games. They had to be really freaked, 'cause they had me out in 20 minutes. We tried to get breakfast at Tim Horton's, but they ignored us to the point that it really ticked me off and I loudly told the girls to get back in the car because we were going to Jolly Pirate's. Once we got on the road, the 108 mile drive went rather quickly. And, when we stopped at a rest area about 20 miles outside of Cincinnati, something funny happened. As I sat in the car with the girls (Katie, Annie & Taylor) waiting for Miss PJ to come out with her son Brandon, I looked to the car to my left. It was about 3 spaces over, with no cars in between. An older gentleman got out and walked up to the rest area. Then a young man, I'd say around 20, got out of the passenger side of the car. He was rather good looking. And, as I causally observed, he took off his sneakers (mind you, it was about 30 degrees), and took off his sweatshirt and jogging pants. At this point he was standing in the parking lot in his socks, shorts and t shirt. I didn't think much about it. I noticed that PJ was walking back out. And, as I looked back over at young, hunk of man, he proceeds to strip off his shorts, down to his boxer briefs! The girls and I were stunned, to say the least. I'm pointing, waving and knocking on the windshield trying to get PJ to look, that way, we weren't the only ones to witness this. Granted, he had a great rear, but this sorta stuff only happens to me! I couldn't make this stuff up if I had to. But, back on the road we went, as he continued to change into a pair of dress pants and a blue button down shirt.

Now for the pics. I took A LOT of pics, and the final count that was keepable for the day was 173. The following are my favorite 76, besides the one in the sneak peek. So, sit back and enjoy.

This is what greeted us as we came in.

This is the first fish tank we saw.

This was a really cool, round tank.

Here are cave fish. I have seen these in their natural habitat, on our trips to Cave City, KY. They have no eyes, so the tank was really dark, and I had to use my flash to get them to show up.

My mom used to breed angle fish, but they never got this big. These beauties were the size of dessert plates.

This was the first tunnel we walked through.

I didn't pay attention to what kind of fish this was, but it was very interesting.

Here is the Horse shoe crab in the petting tank. Katie and I both petted this one, Annie refused to.

This is one of the really cool tanks.

This is a Mud Skipper. I had to really point this one out to Annie, and when she saw the eyes sticking up out of the water, she was really grossed out. (Just in case you're having a hard time finding it, it's eyes are near the middle of the pic.)

Next, we went into the Shark Theater. We watched a 10 minute flick, and then they raised the screen, and we got our first glimpse of the shark tank.

Here you see a small great white, along with some tuna.

Here are several sharks swimming around.

This one is kinda dark, but just imagine being in the ocean and see this swimming around you.

Here is a sting ray that swam up to the window for us.

Another great white, or maybe the same one. I couldn't tell.

Here is Sweet Pea, the shark ray. They still had her new boyfriend was still in his holding tank, until they could make sure he was going to take to the new environment.

These are turtle skulls. How cool!

Here is what the inside of a turtle shell looks like.

These are the same star fish from the sneak peek. I just love the colors. And my new camera caught it very well, don't you think?

These were in the same tank as the star fish. Such bright colors, reminds me of the '80's.

Here is one of the sea horses.

Look, I found Nemo! Well, maybe one of his brothers.

I think this is a deadly puffer fish.

Here is a lion fish.

Here is a moray eel.

Some piranah.

Here are the alligators. I guess they built the porch to make them feel at home. And what you can't see, that is just out of frame on the right, is a stuffed deer head.

Here is a turtle swimming just off the side of the bridge.

Here is the floor of the bridge. It was a little disorienting to walk on this. It felt like you were going to fall in at any moment.

Here is Taylor and Katie in the Bird Aviary. If you wanted to feed them, you had to buy little cups of fruit juice for them. Some of those birds knew how to work it. There was one bird that was on the wall, above everyone's reach, with a cup just chowing down.


This one I thought was kinda cool. The man you see standing there is Miss PJ's husband, Brian. The blur you see in the fore ground is their son, Brandon. And the reason why I thought this one was cool, is because Brian was standing still, and the fish and Brandon were moving in opposite directions.

Here's one of my little odd shots of Annie.

Here is a hammerhead shark, as he swam over me in one of the tunnels.

Here is a shot back into one of the tunnels. Just incase you are wondering, I don't know anyone in this pic.

Here are the moon jelly fish.

Here was one of the jelly fish that I thought was cool.

Here is Annie in front of the giant jelly fish wall sculpture. And the cool thing about my new camera is that I took this pic with the camera turned side ways, but the camera flipped it right side up for me.

Here is Taylor and Katie, respectively.

Here were some tiny jelly fish. And what was cool, was that they called this room the Jelly Fish Gallery. They had each tank set into a gold guild picture frame.

This was in the middle of the room. Cool, huh? Spongebob would love it.

Here is one of the sting rays as he swam over us in a tunnel.

Here is a white tipped reef shark.

Here is Sweet Pea, again. She was very social that day.

Here is another white tipped reef shark. And if you look just behind him, you can see the tail of a sting ray.

Once I pointed out the sting ray to Annie, he decided to come up to the window for a photo op.

Let me just say that it was little disturbing for a great white to swim over us in a tunnel. If you look closely, you can see all the rows of his teeth.

And this is why I'll never go swimming in the ocean, if I ever get near it.

It amazes me that they swim with these sharks. If you are wondering why they are in with the sharks, they were cleaning the tank.

This is a cool shot. That is Miss PJ, Brandon and her nephew Dale at a bubble window on the other side of the tank. I took this one from inside of a tunnel.

Can you hear the Jaws theme? Look just to the right of Annie's head, behind the fish. Is that a great white shark?

Yep! And look at the expression on Annie's face, as she realizes that it just swam really close to the glass behind her.

Another great white behind Miss PJ. I took this one with no flash, so you could see the shark.

Here is a shot of the bubble window that Miss PJ and the boys were in. Shortly after taking this, Katie accidently elbowed Annie in the eye, and gave her a good shiner.

Here is a shot of the great white, with the flash on.

Here is Miss PJ and Brandon, next to a stuffed hammerhead shark.

Here are the girls.

Here we are at the shark petting tank. Yes, I said shark petting. Don't worry, they were specially trained, baby sharks. They don't bite, I don't think. Needless to say, I didn't reach in there. It would be my luck that they would think it was lunch time.


In the fore front you see Brian, you can't see Miss PJ, then there is Katie and Taylor. And yes, that is Katie's arm in the tank.

Annie was like me, there was no way she was reaching in there. So, she sat on the floor to look at them through the side.

And this is Katie's arm, in the tank.

They had a seat that weighed you and compare you to how much a shark weighs. Here is Annie.

Here is where she ranked.

Here is Dale. He was at the Juvenile Shark Ray.

Here is Brandon. He was at the Adult Nurse Shark.

And here is Katie. She was at the Juvenile Shark Ray, too. And when I said that it just confirmed the fact that she was juvenile, the couple next to me started laughing.

Here is a cool shot from the penguin tank. The bubbles are from a penguin that swam past really fast.

Here is one that stopped to look at me.

They really like swimming past us as we got close to take pics.

Here is another one that was giving me the eye.

Here is Katie, as we had a late lunch at Bob Evans before heading back.

And here is Annie. It was a surprise shot, 'cause she kept diving under the table to keep me from taking a pic, which is really rare for her.

All in all, we has a great time. We browsed the gift shop, and we all came back with at least one thing that has the aquarium's logo on it. If you ever have a chance to go there, do it! I'd love to go back. Maybe by the end of summer we will.

Ok, back to the regular knit blog routine.