Museums, aquariums, and boats...oh my!

While we were in Iowa visiting my parents they took us here:

We spent a good four hours at this museum and first stop was the aquarium.  First thing that caught my eye and scared the poop out of Logan was the octopus.  Upon siting this creature he refused to go anywhere near it...not even when Grandma asked to take his picture with the octopus!  Can't really blame the poor kid...I wasn't to crazy about it either!



Luckily Logan liked everything else he saw in the aquarium.  Though I would say the sea horses were his favorite.

My favorite was the large wall tank with sharks and sting rays...and this is also where I took one of my favorite shots of the day.

Hint:  I love this shot!

On the second floor of the aquarium there was a neat hands-on area.  Since the museum is the Mississippi River museum of course the interactive area had to do with rivers and how they work.  Pretty sure Logan and Gavin didn't learn a thing about rivers, but they had fun playing in the water.  And the adults...yeah, they did their fair share of playing too!

From here we went to the second building that was part of this museum.  Inside we got to check out some more river wildlife including turtles, ducks, and fish.

At this point we had been at the museum for a couple of hours and it was time for a lunch break.  After lunch we headed outside to check out the boats. 

There were two different boats we got to tour.  One of them is the boat in the picture above, but firt we started in a much smaller paddle boat.

Here's my second favorie shot from the day!

And here's a few pictures from the much larger boat:

There were some other fun things to do outside too.  Like drive boats...

...run around on railroad tracks...

Third favorite shot of the day!

...and play...on and around everything!

Fourth favorite shot of the day!

After hanging out outside we went back inside for the last part of the museum.  'Course I don't have many pictures from this area...I think I was all photographed out by then!  I do have these shots from the mirror room that turned out.

It was a big day out, and we left after four hours with two sleepy children and five exhausted adults (seriously - I think everyone but my dad (the driver) fell asleep for at least some part of the drive home)!  This just made it one more highlight of our summer vacation.