Padon's 2nd Birthday!

Leo asked what Padon wanted for his birthday and I said a day at the Seattle Aquarium. Leo was totally on board and excited to share his favorite lunch spot in Seattle - Ivars, with Padon and was interested to see what Padon would think of the Aquarium. With my week off from work it worked out awesome for Padon, Walter, and I to be able to meet Leo at the aquarium on Padon's birthday.

Leo was excited to share feeding the seagulls on the warf with Padon and at first it was a little hard to get Padon interested not in the pigeons (who you were not supposed to feed) and in the seagulls who you could feed. But when Leo gave up more than half his fries to Padon and the fun involved in chucking handfuls of greasy goodness down to really large and loud birds Padon was all over it. And I think Leo was pleased.

We made our way to the aquarium and went through all the exhibits but sadly it wasn't as mind blowing an experience as I thought it would be. When we entered there was an extremely large aquarium with a scuba diver in the tank talking to the children seated on the floor in front of it but Padon really didn't care. He was interested in the fish but the sight of them wasn't accompanied by his tiny "Woooowwwww" or a whole lot of gibber jabber like I hoped it would.
Not until we went into where the sea horses and light sensitive fish were and there were tiny aquariums on Padon's level. He then became very animated and told a very nice German gentleman all about what he was seeing. The gentleman was so sweet talked back to Padon in English about the fish and how neat they were.

Padon just kept on going, sharing with their whole family the greatness of this one tiny tank until we had to pull him away so more people could see. It was an oddly shapped room (kind of like a doughnut) and it was becoming a traffic jam of people trying to see the fish, especially the sea horses.

Padon just couldn't see the fur seals as they swam by but could see their picture on the informative plaque and because of this inability to see all the great sea life around him we passed through the aquarium pretty quickly. It was fun but not as impactful as I thought it would be.

We ended our time at the aquarium getting a picture taken in front of the Sixgill Shark where ironically enough Padon was just a little taller than the 2 foot mark on his 2nd birthday. We left the aquarium, went to the Pike Place Market, had some coffee, Padon opened Leo's gift to him, and we said our goodbyes to Leo and made our way back to our bus stop.

We had to stop and get "superstar" pictures taken next to the Maximus Minimus Bus shapped like a pig near the Pike Place Market. It really was a cool truck/ van. It looked like it had been rivited together all over the place but really must have been made out of foam so as to cut down on the weight caused by that much real steal. I wish I could have seen it driving down I-5.

When we did make it to our bus the bus was full to the gills. Two nice gentleman gave us their seat and Walter, Padon and I cramed ourselves in the seat along with Padon's backpack and the SUV stroller which is like a whole other person (typically why we don't take the SUV stroller with us when we go downtown and on the bus). It made for a great picture, and it helped reaffirm Walter's dislike of riding the bus. He says he doesn't mind doing it with me but would not want to get caught in a similar circumstance with Padon alone. He has no sense of adventure - Ha!