Oregon Coast Aquarium

After spending a little time in Utah we continued on our journey and made it to Oregon.  It was a lot colder here than I was expecting.  We did check what the weather was going to be, but somehow it just seems colder with the moisture and the rain.  But it's been nice having a little vacation from the dry in Colorado.  We headed out to the coast one day of our Oregon trip and visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.  It was nice weather out there that day and it wasn't very busy, so we had a great time!  Here are the kids checking out one of the tanks.

 

They had some fun play areas for kids.  One of them let the kids catch fish or pretend they are on a fishing boat.  All three kids liked catching fish.  Here is Anna with her catch.

Matthew wanted to be the captain of the ship.

Anna ran the fish market and sold me some nice fish, crabs and mussels.  She had a lot of fun doing that!

She was also excited to see the jellyfish.  The jellyfish were much more colorful than they look in this picture.

A lot of my pictures at this or any aquarium (or zoo) are just of the kid's backs.  :)  Here they are looking at some starfish...or do we call them sea stars now?

Sea lions.  This reminds me of when we lived in Monterey a few assignments ago.  We lived a few blocks up the hill from Cannery Row and we could hear the sea lions barking at night.  Ahh, good memories.

The shark tank.  Anna really liked the rays in there (or skates?).   She told us one of them was her special friend.

Matthew tries on a diver helmet.  Anna wanted to try it too, but was a little too short to do it on her own and refused to have anyone help her.  So we have no pictures of her in there.

And Matthew and Anna both check out the shark jaws.

Looking at some seals.  Grant was VERY excited about seeing all the animals.  He was running around squealing, pointing and jabbering at a lot of the tanks.  Here he was very excited when the seals would swim close by.

We played at a little play area before we left.  Here's Grant with the play turtle.  It was a fun visit and we got to see a lot.  We drove around and saw a few more things on the coast and got some clam chowder at Mo's before heading back inland.  It was a lovely day!