Birthday Outing

Yesterday was Megan's second birthday and we had a very exciting birthday outing planned for her.  Both John and I took off work to spend the day with our little big girl.  We wanted to give her a nice day with both parents especially since she have to share our time with baby brother in a month and a half.  The day itself couldn't have been nicer as the temp reached 70 degrees - wow - and you have to look hard in order to find any snow on the ground. 

Here are Megan and Daddy right before we left the house at 9 a.m.

Our main planned activity was going to SeaLife at the Mall of America.  We started seeing signs for it as soon as we parked the car and I think Megan caught on to what we were doing because she kind of started chanting "fish, fish".  Here Megan and Daddy are peeking in at the sting rays.

Megan loved watching the water rush into the tidal pool.

Then we reached the underwater tunnel where fish swim above you and are essentially all around you.  Megan has a favorite action song about baby, mama, grandpa and daddy sharks so we were naming all of the creatures as they passed by.  I think in the picture below Megan saw a fish at the bottom of the aquarium who was "sleeping".

 Sometimes the fish swam right along the glass!

Finally, we walked through an area still under construction but was setup more like a rainforest.  It made for some cute photo-ops.

We debated on where to eat for lunch and ended up at Rainforest Cafe.  The atmosphere was great for Megan but she didn't eat a whole lot and the lunch turned out to be kind of expensive but I think she enjoyed it overall.  From Megan's chair she had a good view of a big butterfly that was flapping its wings the entire time.  I think Megan spent more time flapping her own wings than actually eating!  The rest of the time was spent pointing out the other creatures that were looking at her!

We stumbled past the Disney Store and knowing Megan's love of Minnie, we couldn't not go in.  We told the lady that greated us that it was Megan's birthday and she arranged to have a special sign come up on their movie screen just for our little princess.  It was a little overwhelming because lights were flashing too but it was a very nice surprise.

We had to walk through Nickelodeon Universe on our way back to the car and Megan was not scared one bit looking at all the rides.  She just kept pointing saying "Whee, whee" and then started pointing to herself.  We decided to go with the basic carousel and figured that would be ok with her since she was making horse noises by this time.  Megan had so much fun and her and Daddy waved to me each time they came around!  This is my favorite shot of the day. 

John and Megan shared a scoop of vanilla ice cream as we left the mall.  We had one more spot to stop so we could pick up a birthday present for Megan.  We picked out a big pack of play food for Megan's little kitchen and she also got a free birthday balloon for stopping in!  Overall, the day was a huge success.  Three worn-out Lewis's made it home a little after 4 from a wonderful birthday outing!