Mesmerized by Nemo and Dory...

Loving the fishes! Isn't this just the cutest?!?

Man do we ever love the Georgia Aquarium! Yesterday we ventured down to Atlanta for a little family outing to see the fish and we had so much fun. It was Sawyer's first ever trip to the aquarium and to say he loved it would be an understatement. He was in amazement. Mesmerized. It was SO much fun to watch. As for Hayden, he is apparently an aquarium pro. You would have thought we had been 100 times the way he took us from exhibit to exhibit. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and he acted as our tour guide from the moment we got there until the moment we exited the building. He pretty much called every fish Nemo and Dory, but other than that minor missed detail in the naming of the fish, he did a great job being our Georgia Aquarium tour guide! I'm pretty certain Sawyer loved the fact that all the fish were called Nemo and Dory, because he would crack up laughing each a every time Hayden called out their name. My favorite part of the whole trip was watching Hayden instruct Sawyer. We would sit Sawyer in front of the tanks so he could touch them and see the fish up as close as possible, and each and every time Hayden would go sit or stand along side of him and tell him how to look at the fish. He was very specific. There were certain fish he wanted him to see and a certain way he wanted his head to turn. For the most part Sawyer loved the instruction, but there were a few times Daddy or I had to intervene just so he didn't push Sawyer over trying to turn him or his head. If Sawyer wasn't doing what Hayden wanted him to be doing we would hear "Momma/Daddy, Saw not seeing right fish." It was so funny to me that he wanted Sawyer to be facing a certain direction or turning his head a certain way to follow one specific fish. He could not understand that maybe Sawyer didn't want to watch the same fish as him. At one point I did attempt to explain this to him, but he quickly let me know "Saw want do what Hayen(he leaves the "d" out of his name when he says it) want do." Priceless I tell you, priceless.

One of the many instruction moments! If only this was a
video so you could have heard him as well. Hilarious!

One of the many times they were thoroughly
enjoying each others company!
Love these boys!

We saw some of our Georgia Aquarium favorites while we were there...

And even spotted some we had missed the last time we were there!

Like this cool guy!

And this GIANT Japanese spider crab!

I thought this Discus was so pretty!

And Daddy loved this White American Alligator!

Hayden could not get over how many of the "same" fish
were swimming together at once. He was amazed.
They were definitely one of his favorites!
Oh, and explaining the difference
between his school and this
school of fish was very
interesting to say
the least!

As for Sawyer... he loved all of the fish! But he especially
loved this tank with the "real" Nemo and Dory!:)
Didn't surprise me one bit they
were his fav. It was only
appropriate!

How cute is this?!? They do have things in common!

Like I said... Hayden was pretty much in charge of which
fish we looked at and when! His little pointer
finger was working in overdrive all day!

And Sawyer was pretty much in the aquarium most of the day!
He loved the fact that he could reach out and
touch the fish/bang on the glass!

And he especially loved waving to them... and me! Not too sure
what happened to the camera here, but I had
to include the waving pic!:)

I also had to get my pic with Sawyer. It was
after all his very first trip to the aquarium!

And, at one point I thought it would be a good idea to get a picture
of me with both boys... this one pretty much sums up how
crazy it is with the two of them at the moment!

Anytime I am holding Sawyer it is pretty much a given that Hayden is going to walk over and want me to hold him as well. That is pretty much what happened in this pic. I was holding Sawyer and we were going to look at the fish together, when along came Hayden! It can get pretty chaotic, but it sure is sweet how they love on their Momma!

So sweet...

And happy!

When I say he enjoyed his first trip to the aquarium,
I mean he enjoyed every.single.fish! I'm pretty
sure he didn't miss seeing one of them!

Hayden was enjoying it so much he decided to get comfortable!

Sawyer even got brave and stood at a few of the tanks!
I just love this picture. Isn't it crazy how a
picture that doesn't even have
a face can say so much...

You all know how much Hayden loves slides, so you can imagine when we saw the famous whale slide what we had to do right?!? Yep. We slid down. Over, and over, and over! And when I say we, I mean we. All four of us ventured down it! Hayden's orders of course...

Coming straight from the belly of the whale!

If you could see how small and dark the inside of this
slide(aka the whale's mouth) was you would
understand why Sawyer's face looks like
it does. Oh, and did I mention
how fast it went?

But of course none of that bothered slide expert Hayden... he loved it!

Along with this stationary seahorse he kept calling a "ride!"

I told you this boy LOVED his first trip to the aquarium!

It even looked like he might take off crawling at one point.
Don't worry though... he decided to stay put!:)

Oh how I love that Hayden just had to cover his
mouth for our family pic! I guess you'll
just have to imagine the smile
that is under there!:)

We also ventured to the new Dolphin Tales show while we were at the aquarium. It was pretty cool getting to see dolphins do a show in the middle of Atlanta, but a little scary for Hayden. Honestly it's not scary, he's just going through this phase right now where the "scary" music and really dark scenes get under his skin. He did make it through the show, and loved the parts where the dolphins lit up and jumped really high, but it was definitely not one of his favorite parts of the day. He just wasn't crazy about the really dark parts with the eerie music. Within a 30 second time frame I would hear "Ooooo, tool(his word for cool)" and then have a face buried in my shoulder. He really did want to like it, he just couldn't. Poor guy. He clapped for like 5 minutes when he realized it was finally over! Sawyer on the other hand thought it was great. He thoroughly enjoyed the entire thing! Well, it was probably a little on the long side for him, but he really did enjoy it.

Right before the show started...

These "pint size" tanks definitely beat out the dolphins
in the excitement category for Hayden!

I kid you not when I say they were both asleep
before we could even walk to the car. Don't
you just love Sawyer's drool?!? Ha!

We might have been outside the aquarium for 2 minutes tops before they looked like this. It was like as soon as they knew we were done at the aquarium they could take a nap! It wasn't like we were keeping them awake inside, I'm guessing they just didn't want to miss anything. I don't blame them though... the fish were pretty awesome!

Until next time...

We'll see you again soon Nemo and Dory. Thanks for helping make our day at the Georgia Aquarium super special!