Day off aquarium adventure with Avery!

Today I had the luck of having a "free" day (counts as a PD day, for other work I've done, but I could do whatever I wanted to with it!).  At first I was just going to do errands and catch up on some sleep, but last week Avery really took an interest in Jellyfish.  I think they were in a reader at daycare.  So I got to thinking that it would be the perfect time to take him to Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto.  I told him the day before that we were going and he was very excited to go and see the Jellyfish!  I was pretty excited too to take him.

So we headed out at 7:30 to get there early enough (10am) but not get caught in rush hour.  We timed it perfectly and were exiting the parking garage right at 10.  Avery was really excited about the CN tower because he had never seen it before.  I told him I would take him back some time to see it.
We headed to the aquarium and got in right away with our timed tickets.  It wasn't too busy yet but the school groups were just starting to arrive.  Avery really wanted to see the Jellyfish but they are near the end so we had to walk through all the other exhibits first.

Sharks!

 Avery was not very interested in the Canadian waters exhibit.  He was interested in the sharks but worried that they would bite us.  As luck would have it, there were employees in wetsuits with scuba gear on cleaning the shark tanks while we were there, so I was able to point out that they weren't being eaten.  I thought the sharks were pretty awesome.  Avery didn't want to stand on the moving sidewalk and so we moved through the exhibit pretty fast at his speed.

Sting(?) rays

Finally we got to the Jellyfish!  I think it was Avery's favourite part but he didn't seem as excited as I hoped he would be.  But I guess it's because he's not really the type to get super-excited about things.  I think he enjoyed it.

First look at the Jellyfish

They say it takes 2-2 1/2 hours to go through the aquarium but Avery ran through it in half an hour.  So I convinced him to go through again.  This time when we went through the "Dangerous Lagoon" with the sharks he ducked his head when the sharks were swimming over him - so cute!  He wanted to make sure they couldn't bite him.  So we were out in under an hour and a half.  But as we were walking out of the aquarium I looked towards the lake and luckily saw...

A train!  Turns out that right across the road was part of the Toronto Railway Museum - Roundhouse Park! So that was, of course, really exciting.  We crossed the road to look at all the trains. The location was the old Roundhouse and the tracks were still there and there was a train sitting on the turntable, so that was pretty cool.

Cool Engine.  Too bad my finger was in the way!

There were other tracks running around and on the weekends there's a tiny train that kids can ride on but it wasn't running because it was a weekday.  There's also a museum that we went in to as well.  Avery had a great time looking at all the trains and that part was way cheaper than the aquarium!

Checking out the turntable

Track for the tiny train

Overall, we had a great day!  When we got home Avery told Grandma, Grandpa and GG some of the things he saw, including the big blue lobster! And he picked out a souvenir of each place that we went to.

So excited about his Train toy that he couldn't wait to play with it

Jellyfish picture and engine

 Aquarium tickets - $41
Parking - $21
Day off with my boy - Priceless!