End of Summer Adventures - Day 2

Now for our second day of fun. We headed out a little later in the morning. We stopped at the Clark Planetarium to get tickets to a couple shows in the afternoon. Then we headed to the Lion House Pantry for lunch. We all had some tasty food, including their delicious rolls and dessert. I saw all those desserts sitting there and just couldn't pass them up. The best part was that it was all included in our passes. It was fun to be able to eat there. It was delicious and a nice place to eat. It was especially nice to have a filling lunch to take us through the rest of the day.

After lunch, we headed back to the planetarium to look around. They have a Foucault Pendulum, telescopes, and displays about the planets. Derek's favorite was where he could crawl around and explore the moon and Mars. He was all over those rocks. It was pretty cool. Our special tickets allowed us to see 2 shows at the planetarium. One was 3D. Elliott chose the Dinosaur show. I was surprised at how well he did with the 3D glasses. He took them off whenever there were dinosaurs (he didn't want them to get too close), but he wore them when they were talking about the land or other things. Derek didn't appreciate the glasses. He did pretty well during the show. We also saw a show about Saturn in the Dome Theater. The screen is shaped like a dome, so it's mainly in front of you, but the picture actually extends above. Derek didn't last through that show. I took him to climb on the rocks some more.

When we were finished at the planetarium, we went to The Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. The aquarium is in a building that used to be a KMart or a grocery store or something. It's pretty odd looking from the outside (for an aquarium). It was a decent aquarium, nothing too fancy, but enough to keep our interest for the little while we spent there. (I think we were in and out in less than an hour.) They had a pool with stingrays that you could pet. Elliott stuck his hand in the water but wasn't about to touch one. They had an octopus, lots of jellyfish, eels, rays, a few sharks, and lots of other fish and other creatures. Derek was happy to get out of the stroller and push it around for awhile.

We had another fun-filled day. I'm so glad we were able to spend those 2 days together. As Brent said, we crammed 6 months of family time into 2 days. Sadly, that's probably about right. We didn't have a whole lot of time together over the summer and school started for Brent today, so he'll be busy for the next 8 months (busy might be an understatement). I'll take what I can get. It was great to be able to do so many things. I calculated how much we would have spent if we paid full price for everything we did. It would have been $163! Every attraction costs so much by itself. What a nice savings we had. We had a great end to our summer.