It's safe to say that we all had a favorite day on the this amazing trip, and I think day 11 may have been Rad's. We enjoyed a slower morning and then walked from our hotel to the Georgia Aquarium.
Here's a few fun facts that make this aquarium so special:
Georgia Aquarium opened to the public in November 2005 with over one million guests
visiting within the first 100 days and 3.6 million guests visiting within the first year.
Georgia Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere with more than
10 million gallons of water.
Ocean Voyager is the largest indoor aquatic habitat in the world, holding 6.3 million
gallons of water.
Georgia Aquarium is the only Aquarium in North
America that is home to whale sharks, the largest fish
in the world.
Pro tip: If you get there when it opens (like we did)... skip the first few exhibits and go straight to the whale shark. The crowds don't show up until later in the day so the viewing section is practically empty. I didn't think about this until it was too late so we had to shove some people out of the way by the time we made our way around. (kidding, of course).
Instead, we got an early morning view of these critters... and the piranhas, too!
Since the moment we planned Atlanta as a stop, I had been looking forward to seeing the whale shark and then this happened. Holy cow, Beluga whales are majestic y'all. I'm pretty sure I teared up which isn't really a surprise, but still. To think of all the creatures God created... as we walked around, I was reminded of the song "So Will I" by Hillsong...
He made every.single.living.organism. and we haven't even discovered them all!
I am so glad that Gigi, Pops, Jody and Owen joined in this crazy little adventure of ours. I love watching my kids grow up with grandparents and they LOVE LOVE LOVE when their big cousin is around. And if that wasn't enough, the treated everyone to the Behind the Seas Tour which was awesome!
We got to learn all how the aquarium operates, how many gallons of water they use, and how to make an "instant ocean". We got to see where they examine sick animals, store food, feed fish and, you know... HANG OUT WITH A WHALE SHARK.
I was tempted to fork over the $350 it takes to swim with this beauty, but we also needed the gas money to get back to College Station.
This was seriously so cool - every one of us was impressed (even if Pops doesn't look like it).
We wound our way through the amazing Ocean Voyager and had to squeeze in an underwater selfie.
And then....
Radley was trying to figure out how we could take her home.
We've been to quite a few aquariums in our decade of parenting (plus pre-parenting days) and this was by far our favorite. If you are within driving distance of Atlanta, then put this on your list of things to do! Every single one of us loved it! Getting there as the doors opened was key, we were able to walk through the entire aquarium at an easy pace and be done just in time for a late lunch.
We headed back to the hotel through Centennial Park and had plenty of the day ahead of us to check off a few more items on our list.
We took the kids to Jimmy Carter's Presidential Library and he's my new favorite human. I'm sure he didn't do everything right, but these libraries really know how to sell a person and I just want to put him and Rosalyn in my pocket.
Then we made our way back to Centennial Park to let the kids play in the "splash pad" before dinner. Jody, Gigi and Pops rested up and I took a quick nap in Ryan's lap while all of the children ran around like fools acting as if this were the first time they had every seen water from a fountain.
It was a delight!
We ended the day with another amazing meal surrounded by amazing family pinching ourselves for this incredible life.
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