Norway Day 11: Atlanterhavsparken Aquarium

 After a delicious breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Atlanterhavsparken Aquarium. Actually, U first left to charge the car and the rest of us walked to join him.

First up at the aquarium were the otters on Otter Island. There were four of them and they were quite active when we arrived. Here are some pictures of their cuteness.

Otter Island is completely natural, as it was before the aquarium was built, with the exception of the lighthouse.

This one was curious about Matthew's shoe.

The keeper came to feed them and told us about each of the otters who are all between 1.5-2 years old. They have two girls and two boys. One of the girls is named Sarah. She was found in the area and is adventurous and whimsical. She is also picky--she did not like some of the fish she was given so would drop it and go get more fish. Otters have thick hair: 70,000-100,000 hair strands per square cm!

Enjoying some fish.

Next up were the penguins. It was fun to watch them swim around in the water.

Feeding time! A few penguins did not come over which we thought was odd. However, we later learned that it was because they were staying by the nesting boxes that had babies in them. Most of the animals in the aquarium are native to the area. The penguins, however, are from Chile.

Cool outside crab fountain

Watching the rays swim around their tank

Me with a curly octupus

Matthew and Megan at an interactive station

 A diver got in the huge Atlantic Tank to feed the fish.

It was cool to see the fish swarming around him, especially some of the big fish like halibut that tend to hang out on the bottom of the tank.

Hungry fish!

Me touching a sea star.

Megan and Matthew feeding the crabs.

Closer up shot of one crab.

We enjoyed watching the 10 seals get fed. One of them jumped quite high.

Megan's take on the seals: The way they moved on land was interesting. And they can move really fast in water.

Me testing out her reflexes. She did not do as well as the others.

Me, Megan and Matthew enjoying carrot cake.

U with our Norway car. It was a nice car even if it did have its idiosyncrasies (like braking on its own). 

Croissant sandwiches and croissants for dinner.

Yummy ice cream!
Me had seabuckthorn/strawberry which was an interesting combo.

U Step Count: 10.5k

Recent Happenings July/August

Here is a sampling of recent events in our home.

Food for junk food day. Coincidentally, our junk food day was on National Junk Food Day. Who knew such a day existed?!? We were not required to eat only junk food, but could partake of the food we had when desired. We also had a birthday party and the swim team party that day so there were lots of options for junk food! Megan doesn't want to repeat this day, though, as she got sick.

Matthew with the flying police car that he built during the free build Lego mini build.

Megan with the very comfortable jet plane that she built.

Snuggling in mom's new infinity pillow.

It rained and it rained and it rained. Not as much as a few years ago when we received 5-6 inches in a few hours but enough that the greenbelts were quite flooded.

Matthew got some strange disease. (Actually, it's part of an old costume flaking off on him.)

Megan's feet are getting close in size to mine.

U's travel backpack.

Look what's inside!

Matthew's penny collection sorted by year with the oldest on the left.
Stats: Oldest: 1957, Newest: 2018, Mean: 1994, Median: 1996, Mode: 2006

Megan's penny collection, sorted by what the penny looks like. Categories are new, new old, shiny coper, coper, instring (interesting) and old.

In sad news, Matthew's fish John Henry died. We will miss him and his funny way of swimming vertically. We will also miss how he would jump out of the water to grab his food.

Other December Happenings

Gorgeous sunsets!

We made Grinch head kabobs courtesy of the Relief Society President.

Megan playing with trains.

U has been bringing exotic fruit home from work. This is a fruit salad he made with dragon fruit, persimmons, start fruit, kiwi, mango and apple. Yum!

Megan and Matthew were super excited to help us get our Christmas cards done. It sure is nice to have helpers!

Sarah trying to get John Henry to jump up to her finger. He will do it when he's trying to get food. Tiny is on the side of her tank so we can see both fish.

The Relief Society President brought over another activity for the kids. This one was building snowmen. Here are their creations:

Picture of Megan in her classroom sent out by her teacher.

Playing Ticket to Ride First Journeys. Megan and Matthew both really enjoy playing it.

Sarah got curlers for Christmas. This is what her hair looked like the morning after we put them in her hair, spiral-style. I thought it looked nice. She thought it was a bit too curly.

Here it is later in the day after she'd had it pulled back in a ponytail for a bit.

Sarah and her friend Hailey doing an experiment with candy canes in the kitchen.

Matthew showing off the hammer and radio he made out of paper. He loves doing little projects like this.

Watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve. Eastern Time, of course. Those of us with names that begin with M then went to bed while the other two played a game until it was New Years here, too.