Aquarium

I have some down time in between training courses right now and
I want to tell you more about our trip to the aquarium in Newport, OR. Yay! Shawn wanted to take Caleb and me to lunch at Mo's in Lincoln City, so that was our first destination. We made great time driving from Portland, but right around the off ramp to get into town, traffic came to a dead stop. It was SO frustrating to be able to see where you want to go, but not be able to get there. I came up with a new "car rule".

Car Rule #1

If you are sitting in traffic, you're not allowed to talk about it.

Once we got to the restaurant, we discovered it was packed. Once we sat down and got our food, we discovered why. That stuff is good! When they say that they have the best clam chowder, they really mean it! It was so good I wanted to eat there again on the way home (but we didn't). next time i go, i am ordering the biggest bowl of clam chowder you can get!

After we ate, we started driving toward Newport; keeping our eyes open for nice beachy spots along the way. Caleb had never seen the ocean before and we wanted to be sure that his first experience would involve lots of waves and sand. We passed by an awesome place; I think it was called Fogarty park. It was so pretty there was even a wedding going on near by! The waves were huge and they were crashing all over this big rock near the shore that people were climbing on. Caleb found a seashell and used it as a shovel to dig in the sand. He buried his feet and dumped sand on Shawn. We really enjoyed ourselves there, but the day was passing us by and we wanted to have lots of time at the aquarium, so we left.

Caleb was very unhappy to get back in the car, and very pleased to get out once we got to the aquarium. He loved it as soon as we got inside. They have life-size plastic fish hanging from the ceiling as if they are swimming over your head. He was pointing at them in amazement and was actually the one who brought them to my attention. He really took the whole place in.

The first real fish he saw were the lion fish. He called them "rarr fish". He also really liked the jelly fish, and he toyed around with saying the word jelly, but eventually decided that a fish is a fish and what kind didn't matter to him -- except the rarr fish, of course. He got to pet a baby sting ray and also a baby shark that he tried to pull out of the water by it's fin. We walked through 2 tunnels where fish are swimming around you all over, even underneath. You could see them from the glass floor, which all of the kids, including Caleb, found very cool. A 3rd tunnel was filled with all different kinds of sharks! Caleb really liked that as well because he has some shark toys and pajamas at home and he recognized the animal.

After the aquarium, we started heading home. We had driven for about an hour when Shawn suddenly realized that he didn't have his wallet! Not only that, but the last time he had seen it was about 4 hours earlier when he stopped to get directions to the aquarium! To top it off he had left it on a stairwell in an alley behind a building AND it had $350.00 CASH inside that we were supposed to use to pay back his dad. We called the Ripley's Believe it or Not and they said that someone had found it! The person found it in the back alley/stairwell/parking lot area and turned it in to the front desk at the wax works. The guy working the desk called the manager who told him to put it in the lost and found, but he said that there was cash in it, so they put it in their safe. By the time we got the wallet back, it was 5 hours after we lost it and all of the cash was still there!!! We had asked God for just one honest person to find it and instead he gave us 3 in a row! AMAZING!