HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM!!

Tim was able to take the day off of work on his birthday and we took advantage of the extra time to spend as a family and did something that's been on our list for awhile: The London Aqarium. We all hopped on the tube (my favorite thing to do with Tim when we have the girls because he can deal with Sophie and the stoller in all the stations - almost no escalators or elevators!) and headed down to the Westminster station. We got out right at the base of Big Ben, which I never get sick of seeing and walked across Westminter Bridge to the Aquarium that you see in the picture above. It was crowded, even though it was a Tuesday because we were in prime tourist country.

Here are the girls' second best friend at the aquarium - nurse sharks. The girls thought it was hilarious that the little sharkies were taking a nap on the sand! Their very favorite things, sadly, I didn't get a picture of: rays. They had a ton of manta rays in a shallow and open top tank right at the entrance of the aquarium. The rays were getting fed while we were watching them and were showboating for some extra attention. There was one that kept turning on its side with one "wing" out of the water and waving it and splashing water while others came up the the glass sides and smiled at our girls. They really were sweet little animals and were so mesmerizing that I forgot to take pictures! Oops.

Here is the birthday boy with little Sophie in her horse shirt in front of a giant tank of lion fish. Pretty cool.

If you look right over Tim's arm in this picture you will see a little black seahorse. There was another tank with a bunch of yellow seahorses. The girls thought these guys were pretty great too!

Sophie was way more excited about being at the aquarium than we expected. I guess it was because we set her free from her stroller and also she really is at the age where she can really see and comprehend her surroundings. She recognizes places and predicts what is around corners - what a genius! :-)

Abby really wanted me to take a picture of this nasty, nasty eel so I better put it in our blog for her. She took this disgusting creature's facial expression as a smile rather than "I'd eat you for a bedtime snack if I could" like I did, so maybe she just looks for the best in all things. I just think it looks freaky. Yuck.

My gorgeous monkeys posing in front of the sharks but no one (including the sharks) would hold still enough to let me get just the right shot. Still cute anyway, right?

At the very end of one's visit to the aquarium there are stairs to climb and you can walk on the ceiling of the shark aquarium. I think I am old, because this bothered me. Clearly I was in the minority!

We ate a lovely McDonald's lunch along the Thames right outside the aquarium. Look what our view was! Big Ben/Parliament and that is the spires of Westminster Abbey on the left. Pretty cool, huh?

OK - so we took some video of the rest of the birthday celebrations later in the day. Hopefully they will load for you. If they don't, I'll try to download them again. Let me know if you have trouble.