Pigs at the aquarium

On Tuesday I took the kids on a field trip to the Niagara Falls Aquarium with the homeschool group from church. It was almost a 2 hour drive so I wanted to leave the house at 8am to make sure we could meet everyone there by 10am.

I planned to get everyone up at 7 but I didn't set an alarm. I never do though. I'm one of those people that if you tell me to make sure I wake up at 3:33am, I'll do it. I think I was born with an internal clock or something. An internal clock that was broken on Tuesday... I woke up at 7:30 which means I only had a half hour to get 5 people fed and ready for the day! I went into crazy mom mode! I gave the gang 10 minutes to eat their breakfast then sent them upstairs to get dressed. As I was running around like crazy packing what we would need, Evelyn came down in the clothes she picked out, stood in front of me, and asked "How do you like me now, sucker!" I should have let that be a warning on how the rest of the day would go.

The kids loved the aquarium despite getting there 20 min. late and missing the penguin feeding :/ They said their favorite part was the Sea Lion show.

We watched it twice.

 But the best part for me was the touch tank. Unlike the other touch tanks we've been to, we got to touch everything! And not just touch, we were encouraged to pick all the animals up and learned a lot of cool things like how like Star Fish eat. 

Ethan with a Horse Shoe Crab...I think

I snuck back in when all the kids were gone

Around lunch time we all gathered in a community room to eat. We decided before we left that our family would just bring snacks then eat lunch somewhere near the falls. As the kids left me (snacks in hand) to go sit with their friends, I reminded them NOT to beg people for food, and that we would leave soon to get our own lunches. Not 5 minutes later I look over to see them with random cookies, chips, drinks, and rice cakes (Evelyn's score) that they all swore people just gave them. It was pretty embarrassing. I felt like people were thinking I was a bad mother. Maybe it was because I was like the ONLY parent who didn't pack their kids a frickin gourmet lunch! Whatever...

I don't usually like Evelyn to be so far from me that I can't hear the crazy things that are coming out of her mouth.... and then do the needed damage control. But against my better judgment I let her sit on the other side of the room with her friends. So as I was trying to stop Houston from eating the tuna fish sandwich that magically appeared in front of him, I heard a sound from across the room that I knew could only be coming from MY daughter.

It was a SNORT! A very loud SNORT! Followed by many, many more SNORTS! Apparently, Evelyn was showing her friends how she can make sounds just like a pig. Red faced, I quickly walked over to quiet her down but by this time most of the room was watching and laughing. Before I made it to the table I noticed something... Evelyn wasn't just sitting with her friends, but was also sitting right across the table from one of our pastors!! 

Only Evelyn would be sitting at a lunch table full of church friends and A PASTOR, and literally be snorting like a dang pig!

It's no surprise that soon after I did some Evie damage control, we left the aquarium and made our way over to the falls. *And yes I did feed my poor children there*

I took this awesome picture!

No really! They were having fun!

We really did have a good time that day! Besides Evelyn's pig impressions *and maybe when she was sticking her tongue out at a little elderly couple* the kids were really well behaved. And for taking my kids to an aquarium and Niagara Falls by myself, without a stroller? I pretty much rocked the house too!

We all felt like this at the end of our trip.