Super hero fish, a movie and pizza

I thought it would be great to get a jump on swimming lessons before summer started and needed to find an indoor pool.  Dimple Dell is close by and I remembered they had a fun indoor pool so I enrolled my kids.  They had a session that started last week and then they don't have any for a couple weeks and then another session starting a week or so into May.  I enrolled them for the one starting last week, without thinking of how busy work would be the last week of tax season.  It made the week a little more stressful for me.  Three days a week I woke Clara up early from a nap to drive the girls down to the rec center, get in and get Tessa changed and to the pool, entertain Clara for half an hour on my lap, get Tessa showered and dried and dressed, drive home 10 minutes before needing to get Spencer from school, come back home for another 20 minutes before leaving to do it all again with Spencer.  It took quite a bit of time.  However the kids are getting much more comfortable in the water and are having fun so it's worth it.

To get to Dimple Dell we drive by the Living Planet Aquarium so my kids were well aware of the new Superhero exhibit and have been begging to go.  Friday seemed like a perfect time.  In the 20 minutes I had between lessons I quickly made a few PB&J sandwiches that I packed along with my favorite Brothers' All Natural freeze dried fruit (I buy the large variety pack at Costco) and some Kool-Aid bottles.  I also packed Clara some baby food and bread.  We went straight from swimming lessons to the Aquarium, arriving around 12:30.  As we walked in I counted 3 signs that said, "No outside food or drink".  This didn't include the 1 sign that said, "No food or drink in the exhibit halls" so I figure it meant no outside food or drink anywhere, including the cafe.

Cafe?  Yes, it's called Calypso's Cafe.  But it's not a cafe.  There is one person with a counter top, microwave oven, and refrigerator.  And a kids meal consisting of a hot dog, chips, and a juice box is $5.00.  But there are quite a few tables in a very fun room with fish murals on all the blue walls and fish hanging from the ceiling.  And most of the people in there were eating their own food that they brought.  But I had read 3 signs and felt a little guilty so I bought a Diet Coke for myself and cookies for each of the kids.  The Diet Coke was reasonably priced for an establishment (although a 21 ounce cup 3/4 filled with ice for $1.50 was a bunch more than my can of Dr. Pepper) but the cookies were ridiculous!  They were 89 cents a piece and they were barely bigger and not any tastier than a Chips Ahoy cookie.  I no longer felt guilty eating our homemade PB&Js.  The kids loved eating in the "ocean" with Mama and Papa Bear.  That's right, we brought stuffed Mama and Papa Berenstain Bear with us.  Spencer had a take home bag from school with some Berenstain Bear books and these stuffed bears.  He had to read one book and then take Mama and Papa on an adventure with him and then write about it in the notebook to send back to class.  So they came with us to the Aquarium.

The last time we went to the Aquarium (a couple hours earlier in the day) all the fish were so active, except the stingrays.  This time was the opposite.  We still love to see all the fish (see my earlier Aquarium post about a month ago) but we had a good time with the stingrays this time.  Spencer pet them multiple times as they were swimming all over and coming up and flapping.  It must have been close to meal time.  Tessa has never seen them so active and I think it really scared her so she refused to put her hand in the water.  Other than that it was the same as last time.  We loved seeing the fish and climbing on everything that could be climbed on (the large toad, the canoe in the Amazon, the coral rocks by the sunken ship, the boat, and everything else they could find) and taking pictures with the Berenstain bears.

The new exhibit was really only cool because of it's "Superhero" theme.  The fish by themselves were quite dull but reading their super powers was fun.  At least the powers I was able to explain to Spencer.  Tessa really had no interest in anything here except the lizard at the end (superhero power of climbing walls).

I believe everyone has their areas where they are cheap and other areas where they splurge.  Movies are an area we are cheap on.  I just can't justify $30 to try to get my kids to sit through 2 hours of a movie that will come out on DVD eventually.  So we rarely go.  As such we just barely got around to renting Megamind for the kids to watch.  We made a fun night out of it by ordering pizza from The Pie (if you get take out or delivery remember to ask for extra sauce!) and eating it downstairs while watching the movie together as a family.  I thought it turned out to be a very cute show (which isn't my usual comment for a non-Disney kids movie) so the Easter Bunny may have picked it up at Target last night for $6.  The kids had fun and Tessa can't wait for the next Pizza Movie night.  She's hoping for the Barbie fairy movie but by the time we get around to renting another movie and being up for ordering out pizza again there will probably be a better kids movie for us to rent.