Birthday Times!

As part of our holiday experiences, I also passed my 37th birthday (gasp! egads! I'm old!), and we kept up our somewhat annual tradition of celebrating by doing something nerdy/scienc-y and fun.  This year, we headed to the Aquarium of the Pacific in nearby Long Beach Harbor.

Not my picture.

Thanks, internets!

Before we headed down that way, we enjoyed a holiday/birthday brunch with Dad and Risa at our house, as they were on their way out of town to Paso Robles for Christmas.  We swapped gifts with one another, and they also did me the solid of delivering Chris' Christmas present from me - a new stand up paddleboard!  He's been wanting one for quite some time, and the Black Friday deals combined with Dad's employee discount at West Marine made it decently affordable.  We had a great time hanging out with them for the morning, and after bidding each other adieu, we each headed off on our respective voyages.

When I ran the Long Beach Marathon in October, one of the items in the swag bag was a coupon for $5 admission to the aquarium, and since it expired on 12/31, we were happy to use it on my birthday.  We'd picked up a coupon for $7 off the normal adult admission of $30 at a local grocery store for Chris' ticket, but as it turns out, the gentleman who sold us tickets gave us both the $5 price!  Sweet!

Another picture that's not mine.

They will be ours from this point on,

I promise.

Time to look at fishes!

The aquarium has two main floors with a number of outdoor exhibits as well.  In addition to fish, it also houses some birds (aquatic and otherwise) and some sea mammals (sea otters, mainly).  Each floor has several different exhibits, themed by associated climates and areas.  While most focus on the Pacific Ocean (it is the Aquarium of the Pacific, after all), some exhibits covered wider ranges, such as one focusing on endangered sea animals all over the globe.

The front hallway had a number of holiday decorations, including this gorgeous cake.  I had to take shots:

"Bye, Buddy!

I hope you find your Dad!"

We browsed through the top floor galleries and then headed outside, to the touch tanks.  As you guys should remember from the Santa Barbara blogs a few months back, I love me some educational animal touching, so I was happy to pet the rays, the sharks, and the horsehoe crabs (they are...hard).  We also wandered through the steelhead salmon exhibit, which actually only features rainbow trout (the salmon are endangered, so there's more trout around, apparently).

Not salmon

An osprey on the mural

near the watershed exhibit

While outside, we also wandered over the lorikeet enclosure, along the way being greeted by this little dude:

"Hello, humans - 

aren't I gorgeous?"

We did make it inside as well and managed not to get pooped on, despite the best efforts of the many avian goofballs lurking around.

After we washed off our hands, we headed back into the aquarium to see the other fowl characters:

Penguins!

We also got a chance to see the sea otters, who as always, were quite entertaining.  Next, it was off to the special exhibits currently being shown, focusing on sea horses and sea dragons and endangered animals (as previously mentioned):

These guys were so cool.

Cute little wee baby 'gators!

I love the stockings they have here.

See? This guy digs the stockings, too.

After the aquarium, we wandered around Shoreline Village to the Yard House, where we had a couple of brews and shared a plate of nachos.  Once that was done, we headed home to finish up our packing for our Christmas trip to Florida, for which we'd be departing early the next day.  Birthday dinner was cheese and chocolate fondue, and then it was time for bed!  A great day to celebrate another trip around the sun!

Later!

Amy