Fourth of July and Baltimore

For the fourth of July, we had some friends over to my parents' house, and my dad grilled up hamburgers and hot dogs. My mom also made her first attempt at a peach cobbler.  It was yummy.

In between burgers and cobbler, we went to the pool with our friends.

It was a quintessential American 4th of July.

We spent the next day relaxing, but by Wednesday, we were ready for another adventure, so the girls and I drove to Baltimore to go to the aquarium.  The last time we went, Vivi was a toddler, and she loved the bubble columns near the entrance.  Those columns still proved to be a hit with the much older girls.

As soon as we got into the main part of the aquarium, Elena spotted a stingray, and she was even more thrilled when we got to the part where you could touch the animals.

It really wasn't a great set up for a touch pool though, because the water was deep and cold, and pool was large, so the animals were very rarely close enough to actually touch.  Elena managed to get to a horseshoe crab, but she was pretty frustrated.  Ironically, I was saved from a total meltdown by the jellyfish.

Now, when I see a tank full of jellyfish, my first instinct is to back away, but the aquarium employees reassured us that these were specially bred jellyfish that didn't sting.  They showed us how to gently stroke only the top of their heads with two fingers.  It was actually super cool.

Our other favorite new additions were the puffins, who were jumping in and out of the water and swimming around.  When they swam, it really looked like they were flying through the water.  Elena made friends with one, and it kept swimming up to the glass to say hello to her.

There were lots of great displays, so we really enjoyed the main part of the aquarium.

Across a little bridge, there's another section that has a huge dolphin tank and seating for shows.  They aren't doing the shows because of covid still, but I thought maybe we could see the dolphins.  We were in luck.  We showed up right at training time, so we got to see them practicing their tricks, albeit from a distance.

There was also a really cool jellyfish section.

We were a little worried about one tank of jellyfish though.  They all seemed to have fallen over.

As we walked back to the main area, Viv begged to see a 4D movie.  She even played the birthday card, so I caved.  As we were waiting for it to start, she said, are they going to shoot water at us? My calm reply was, of course not, because they would have told us to put away our electronics.  I shouldn't have spoken so soon, because as soon as the lights went down and the screen lit up, they asked us to put away our electronics, and sure enough, they squirted us with water a few times.  The movie was horrible, but the girls were happy, and luckily, it was only ten minutes long.

We found one more exhibit to explore.  This one was about Australia.

Of course, by then the girls were hungry for lunch.  I told them, never fear, a restaurant is near!

There was also a Fogo de Chao across the street that Vivian stared at longingly, but I just couldn't bring myself to go to it without Jeff.  Hard Rock Cafe turned out to be a good choice though.  We had a lot of fun with the music videos, and Elena was thrilled to discover her hotdog came in a guitar shaped plate.  She was also very inspired by the decor, and created her own Hard Rock Cafe art.

After lunch, we had a smooth drive home.  It was a lot of fun, but we were wiped out for the rest of the day.