The Dallas World Aquarium!

This Halloween was pretty unique for us. The first one I can remember not dressing up for, possibly ever. Because we were in Dallas, we didn't really celebrate this year. Today was the day for the visit to the Dallas World Aquarium! Off we went in Matt’s car only to discover that our Google directions led us to an office building… not much excitement there. We circled the block a few times to be sure we hadn’t missed it. But still, no fish. We decided to stop at a little convenience store to ask directions. After a few moments of debate over what street to take, one of the guys there nicely offered to lead the way in his car and we could follow. We made it! It cost $20 each to get in so we were really hoping it was worth the money. It was!!

The trails, plants, and trees reminded me of the Myraid Botanical Gardens here in OKC but there were all kinds of fish and animals to see up close. Some were in cages and others were just out in the open.

Our first animal encounter at the aquarium!

I loved seeing these beautiful Flamingos up close! It seem like they are pretty far away and hard to see at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Would you believe me if i told you this diver was Matt? It's not...

Seeing eye to eye

We also saw some parrot fish in this tank and it reminded us of stories from
Karen and Kenny's honeymoon when they snorkeled and saw them munching on the coral with their little fish beaks.

The sharks live in a 400,000 gallon tank that has a tunnel you can walk through! Talk about surrounded by sharks! The tunnel is 40 ft long and allows you to see Brown and Bonnethead sharks, Eagle and Cownose rays, sawfish and giant groupers from all different angles. We were lucky enough to see them at feeding time. I really thought we would get to see a feeding frenzy with the sharks all fighting for the food. But i suppose the aquarium feeds them pretty well or they would gang up on the smaller fish in the tank. The sharks and rays just casually sucked the feeder fish into their mouths and they were gone!


This is a really beautiful picture of the shark tunnel I found on the aquarium's website at http://www.dwazoo.com/

That fish with the big chainsaw looking thing on his face is called a Saw Fish. Matt and i were a little facinated with them.

This is the Mayan Performance Troupe! Their music filled the entire aquarium.


The Temple of the Jaguar!

ROAR!



The corcodiles tails were thicker than their bodies!! Wow I bet they are full of powerful muscles.

There were a lot of really big tanks featuring reef life from many different countries. (Notice the big strange fish in the upper right hand corner of this picture? Alive and doing well, just resting that way i guess. ha)

The Fish Whisperer! Matt tried to communicate with this one. Is this alligator gar? Anyone know? Neil?

This GIANT tank was the home of a manatee, sea turtles, rays, and some other interesting fish. This picture doesn't even begin to do this tank justice. It is more than twice as wide as this picture and the bottom of the tank drops about 40 ft. It was fun to watch the big manatee swim back and forth right in front of the glass like it was just as happy to see us as we were to see it!

A little bit blurry, but I loved this picture of Matt and I with the waterfall. This waterfall actually flows into the same tank the manatee is in.

This little guy was the cutest!!! Matt wanted to take him home. He leapt down from onto this log and pounced onto the pumpkin for a snack. He began eating grapes out of it that were bigger than his tiny face! Sooooo cute!

I think Matt was starting to get pretty hungry at this point... haha

Halfway through our tropical adventure!

A hat! (aka wall art)

I'm a red-head too!

There was actually a sloth sittin in a short little tree that we probably could have reached up and touched! He was all curled up asleep so we couldn't see him very well, but we were sure wishing he would wake up and move around!

This little guy was passed out too! Love the way his leg is hanging off the branch. :)

I loved this tank! The top was open so you could see in really well. It was full of rays and turtles! You could also look in from the side and see the fine details of the rays.

There were also some really precious river otters that I could not quite capture a picture of! They were having too much fun splashing, playing and chasing each other. By the time they popped out of the water onto a rock and I got my camera aimed in the right direction, SPLASH! they were back in the water doing underwater flips. They looked like they were having a blast.

After we left the aquarium we decided to get some lunch then head to the Galleria for some shopping. What fun! There was a two story Forever 21 (one of my favorite stores) that was absolutely enormous! You could literally spend days in there looking at all the cute clothes and jewelry. I tried to look quickly so Matt wouldn't be bored out of his mind but i still managed to get a heavy bagful of things (all were good deals of course *winks*)

Then it was Matt's turn visiting a HUGE Express! We also stopped in some neat stores they don't have at our usual Mall like Gucci, Armani Exchange, Coach, Prada... you get the idea, just for fun. Matt did find a watch at Gucci he was pretty interested in. It had a large face with diamonds all the way around in the shape of a G.

Then, we found out it was $4,000. A little out of our price range to say the least. We looked in a few other stores to find a similar style but when the prices went up past the $10,000 range we began to lose hope. Alas, no watch for Matt.

I think we walked the entire mall twice and boy were our feet and legs feeling the burn! At least we saved our wallets a little by avoiding that watch, and hopefully we burned off some of the glorious Jack-in-the-Box we pigged out on all weekend! YUM! :)

(sorry this post is so long! Hope you enjoyed all the pictures.)