The New Aquarium

The week after we got back from our trip we got to take a trip to the new Loveland Living Planet Aquarium courtesy of Ian's work. They paid for the field trip and invited families as well. So nice! 

The new aquarium has been under construction for awhile now and just opened in March. It has a lot of the same exhibits that were at our old aquarium in Sandy (which we went to often when we had passes to it) plus lots more. All of the habitats are a little bigger now too. The penguins and otters especially benefited from the bigger space. It also has a cool shark tunnel and a 4D theater. They will be adding a lot more to it over the next couple of years, but it was fun to go and see what is there. The other nice thing is that our tickets are good for a bounce back visit before August 31st so we can go back when more of the animals have been moved into their new homes. Yay!

I think the kids' favorites were the penguins and the shark tunnel. The penguins were so fun to watch. Beckett was fascinated by them and probably could have stayed and watched them for an hour. He made all kinds of excited noises when they swam by him too. So cute. Davin liked the shark tunnel the best. He liked seeing the big sting ray in the shark tunnel too.

Beckett checking out the ducks in the Utah exhibit.

Ian got this shot of me with the kids watching the sharks and I just love it. It captures my joy of being a mom and watching my kids experience something new and interesting about the world. You may notice that we are missing a kid in that picture. Weston wasn't with us for this field trip. He was in school still. I didn't feel too bad about not bringing him though because he had already been to the new aquarium for a birthday party. :)

Other highlights of the aquarium were the seahorses, toucans, poison arrow frogs, otters, and tropical fish tanks. I'm excited to get to go back in a few months and see even more of the animals and maybe go when the newness has worn off a bit and it's less crowded.