Academy...take two

Remember last year when 8 month old Ezra and I were invited to the Academy of the Sciences with our friend Bethany? We had so much fun!! Well, thanks to another invite from our friends Dru and Savannah, and a FABULOUS teacher discount, we decided to go back today! =)

We started off by playing in explorers cove. It's a great little play area for babies 0-3. There are TONS of things to play with...but of course Ezra only wanted to climb the stairs,
run around in the tree house,
jump up and down between levels,
and run across the bridge! He ignored most of the other games and toys
except for this chicken...who, for whatever reason, needed to be dragged along and shown what Ezra was doing. Such a silly boy!

After the boys got tired of the play area, we all headed down to the aquarium. This time around, Ezra was stroller free and he LOVED IT!!! He literally ran from exhibit to exhibit...pointing and shouting "that"! At first the fish were much too close for his comfort...but after spending time staring into their watery world he was up and ready to explore more things!He really liked this tank with a big swimming turtle.
We took the elevator up to the rain forest exhibit where we saw (and heard) exotic birds, and watched beautiful butterflies flutter around.
Ezra was a little freaked out that the butterflies might land on him...he liked to look at them...but he really did NOT want to be touched by them. =)
After a quick lunch in the sunshine, it was off to see the penguins! Once again, I let Ezra out of his stroller for this exhibit and he loved it! He laughed out loud at a penguin looking through the glass at us...and then he toddled off to view the zebras, lions, and other taxidermy animals (which I don't really like, so we didn't stay here long.)

We stopped one more time in the kids play zone, and then I let Ezra go to the museum shop. I was hoping to buy him just a little plastic animal or a stuffed penguin....but no......he found the ONE thing in the shop that was in any way related to airplanes and REFUSED to let go! We didn't even VISIT the space section of the museum!! Lucky for me it was a good price. He stayed awake for most of the car ride home, jabbering away about what he'd seen and "flying" his new space shuttle around his car seat. When we finally pulled in, this was the sweet scene in my backseat. What a fun morning!