Monterey Bay Aquarium

Mommy otter and her baby
Wow, I guess I do look big. Damn. Maybe it is the shirt.....

Alyssa is much braver this year and she is actually touching the animals...

Loving the feeling of the starfish Their first starfish, isn't he cute? The girls thought so.

Tyler and Alyssa had the week off from school as it is 'ski week' here in the Bay Area and so we decided to pack our snack bags and lunch boxes and drive to Monterey.

We were so excited to see a wild otter carrying her baby pup in the Bay. One of the Aquarium employees explained to the group that was watching, that otter pups aren't able to swim very well so their Moms spend the first 2-3 months swimming everywhere on their backs and the baby lays on the mommy's tummy. Kind of reminds of us PG people who carry their babies for 40 weeks until their baby is ready to 'swim'. I realized then and there that otters were lucky...

So while he was explaining this, the mommy otter turned over on her tummy and the baby otter was gone. He eventually came up above the water and turned over on his back. The mommy otter dove under the water and came back up with kelp for the baby. While all this was happening, the guy kept explaining how the babies are basically helpless until they learn to swim. Our thought through all this was what happens if the baby otter was swept away with the current? If the baby couldn't swim then why couldn't the Daddy otter go get the food or at least watch the baby otter instead of leaving there on top of the water floating. There were so many kids waiting to ask questions that I felt a little funny asking our own question since we, at least me, should probably know the answer.

We got off to a great start and the kids were very excited to play on the play structure, see the penguins, and play in the outfits. We rode the very thrilling elevator up the kid's area only to discover that they are renovating it and won't be complete till March 17th. Damn good thing we didn't pay to get in today because I would have demanded my money back! Needless to say, we will be going back in a few weeks to see the Penguins. It also happens to be their Spring Break when they get another week off from school. Talk about timing.