I Love Sharks

So ever since Brandon first met me and found out that I wanted to go to the Georgia Aquarium, aka the largest aquarium in the world, he has been planning to take me! He planned the whole thing himself and it turned out to be an awesome trip with Mike and Adrienne!

We left Friday (7/30) morning at about 5am and arrived in Atlanta around 2:30pm. We checked into the hotel, then headed over to the Underground Mall, which is supposedly where Atlanta 1st started. It was pretty cool, but kinda sketchy... So don't really recommend it to anyone going with kids... well, at all really. Then we tried to walk across town to see the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial. Key word being tried. It was terrible! We walked, and walked, and walked in the nasty hot weather only to get to the Memorial and be able to get in. Wow. Then we had to walk, and walk, and walk all the way back across town to get back to our car. Needless to say, we were pretty gross and ready for the A/C once we got back to the car. Since it was getting kinda late, we decided to go see Inception at the local theater. Adi and I thought it was incredible. Mike thought the ending sucked, and Brandon thought it was too creative and therefore stupid. :) ...Had a feeling he wasn't going to like it.

Once we got out of there, we headed over to Longhorn's for a good, healthy dinner. We were quite hungry from all the walking. So, all of us got steaks! Yum. However upon entering the steakhouse, Mike, Adrienne, and I had no idea that we would have the opportunity of a lifetime. To witness a true miracle. Brandon ate a salad!!! O.O Oh my gosh!!! I know!!! Truly amazing. In my entire time of knowing Brandon, he has never eaten a salad. Thank heavens I was able to get a picture of the great and astonishing event because who knows when it will happen again! :)


The next morning, we got up bright and early, and ready for the Atlanta Zoo! The Zoo is probably one of Brandon's favorite things to do. Side note: I think Brandon and I were truly meant for each other. He loves land animals and I love sea animals. We complete one another! :) Anyway, it was really a lot of fun and stayed pretty cool up until mid-day.

The parakeet aviary was gorgeous. There were hundreds of parakeets in all sorts of colors!

This guy was hilarious. We called him King Budda of the prairie dogs. :)

Not really sure what this one is... at first I thought he was a baboon, but he's not... Anyway, he was really cute and very interesting to watch.

Another beautiful bird in another aviary.

This Mamma Panda. She was too cute! I had never seen a panda so close before so it was really cool!

After we finished at the zoo, we headed over to the Georgia Aquarium. Holy Smokes! If you ever decide to go to this aquarium, get your tickets in advance! It was insane how may people were there. I've never seen lines so long in my life! They have so many people come that when you buy your tickets, you actually have to buy them for a certain time slot. Brandon and I bought ours ahead of time for 9am, and I thought that we weren't going to be able to use them because we didn't get there until 1pm. Thankfully, the very nice peeps just let us right in (after waiting in lines for about 30 mins). Once we were inside, I was pretty much in heaven. :) ...Wasn't as big as I thought it would be and it only took about an hour to go through everything, but they had some really incredible exhibits.

Jellyfish! Pretty behind the glass... don't ever want to meet them face to face! They were almost hypnotic to watch...

Japanese Spider Crab. You can't tell in this pic, but it was actually quite huge.

These are called Cichlids. Beautiful fishies. I believe they were in the Amazon section of the aquarium.

This was my 3rd favorite exhibit. Really, really pretty fish.

This was my favorite Amazonian fish, part of the exhibit shown above.
I just love it's coloration! :)

Baluga Whale. Not a great picture, but they really are magnificent.

This was the Tropical Reef exhibit, 2nd favorite. All of those tiny specs of color are little fish. This exhibit was really cool because it simulated waves crashing every few mins.

Now, if you don't know me very well, let me tell you I love sharks! I always wanted to be a marine biologist growing up so I could dive with and study them! However, I've chosen another career path seeing as how it wouldn't be the best for family life. ;) Needless to say, the "Ocean Voyager" exhibit was my absolute favorite! They had tons of sharks...

Beautiful Hammerhead Shark! He was swimming sideways for some reason... He was a little throwed off.

Blacktip Reef Shark and a Sawfish

Leopard Shark. Absolutely beautiful! The picture doesn't even do it justice!

And for the finale! A Whale Shark! They actually had four in this particular enclosure. The largest one is 24ft long... Holy Moly!

Before you watch the video below, let me apologize. I think I say "Oh my gosh! That's amazing!" about a billion times! So just tune me out! :)