Keeping with last year's tradition, Haley and I once again decided to swap family experiences instead of physical gifts. When looking up things to do inside in Michigan, Billy found the Sea Life Aquarium in Auburn Hills. Right next door is the Rainforest Cafe, so we made it a multipurpose stop!
We took Alice to the Rainforest Cafe in the Katy Mills mall, over a decade ago, and she, unsurprisingly, has no recollection of it. I couldn't even find a picture in my blog! = ( Either way, she, and all of her siblings, will hopefully fondly remember this trip fondly!
Very glad that we were heading for the Rainforest Cafe, because it would have been hard to bypass had we not planned to go there!
Juliet got the seat next to the aquarium, because for her birthday dinner, she wants to go to a restaurant with an aquarium, and Lansing just doesn't have one. = ( So, she got to enjoy it on this trip, since we can't make it happen when we take her out.
It was raining in between the bar and restaurant seating areas!
An animatronic butterfly was in my line of sight during my meal.
Alice didn't bring her phone, so she took my phone to capture some of the things she wanted to remember.
After a very enjoyable lunch*, we headed to our two o'clock Aquarium visit! First stop featured on the website was the bubble!
Each room offered a unique something, and there were so many underwater windows to lean in and see the sea life up close and personal!
We spied a long-spine porcupinefish, and found out her name was Biscuit!
She had a smaller sized cousin who liked to play with the towel, while the worker polished the window, whose name we think is Baxter.
There were small sharks all over the place!
I really liked this school of fish.
One of the advertised rooms we looked forward to held a tank where you get to touch some of the animal life! There were some starfish and some sea anemone(?)
I spy Emily!
I was really looking forward to seeing the eel, but learned, much to my dismay, that they are nocturnal. So, all we saw of Jeff was him napping.
He gained a snuggle buddy!
One of the most delightful feelings in the world is watching your children be in awe of things, and this trip offered that many times over! Even I was entranced by these creatures swimming around, living their lives!
Now I spy William!
Juliet took so many pictures that her phone died. So, after a while, both she and Alice were using my phone to snap pictures!
There was another eel, but Ripley was also sleeping, upside down, none the less!
The tunnel was totally the best, and absolutely lived up to the expectation.
The turtle looks like he was giving Emily a celebrity high-five!
Juliet wanted a picture of all of us on the bench.
I don't know who took the picture of the light fixture in the jellyfish room, but I'm sure glad they did, because I missed it in person!
These windows were quite deep, and I felt like they gave the least distorted perspective of the animals in the water.
"Cleaning up trash" to save the baby sea turtles!
Art made from actual trash found on Michigan beaches.
Even though it wasn't an exhibit, they had the nursery/infirmary available for viewing.
The turtles were marked so that they could be weighed and monitored.
Their names were written on the end of the tank, #9 was named cherry. All of the turtles in the tank were named after some sort of fruit.
Once we finished at the aquarium, we decided to walk the mall. It was reminiscent of the Katy Mills Mall, to the point they were owned or designed by the same company. We weren't quite done exploring, and ended up looking more like tourists than shoppers in Bass Pro Shop.
The wooden wolf on the staircase banister was awesome!
And, we obviously didn't get enough fish viewing at the aquarium! We did discuss whether or not the aquarium cleaners took contract jobs at Rainforest Cafe and Bass Pro Shop, since they are already there!
William was the last one building, and we told him that when his fence fell, we were leaving, but he got it pretty tall!
Or nor!
Yep, this is how shopping went.
We were actually after dessert, because plan A didn't work out. Plan A was that no one would get awesome souvenir cups at the Rainforest Cafe (because we didn't want to carry them around, or try to find a place for them at home) and we would share a fancy dessert. Sadly, we ran out of time, so we made a plan B. Plan B was to get everyone a sweet treat at anywhere they wanted. Well, since we were unfamiliar with the mall, we walked all the way to the north end, but almost all of the options were down by the food court where we started!
Everyone did end up with a treat: frozen yoghurt, cinnamon roll, churro sticks, and in Grace's case, a boba tea in a bear cup!
The day was awesome, and the weather treated us pretty well as far as lack of snow, though Billy did end up driving back in the dark, since the sun sets at like 5pm! It's close to a two-hour drive for us, so we probably won't be back anytime soon, but we would all happily return! A very good Christmas gift to be sure!
later days
*For posterity, I thought I'd include the price to feed all seven of us at a restaurant, where we all got drinks, Billy & I split a platter, Alice had an appetizer, Emily & Grace ordered from the kids' menu, and William and Juliet split a burger. After tax & tip: $144.78.
