Butterflies and ocean animals

Rowan had been asking to go to the butterfly garden for months, so as our time in Oki drew near, I decided we should check it out! It was up near the aquarium so we decided to make a day of it...it was slightly ambitious as it was just the boys and me, but it turned out great (although totally exhausting for all of us).

The butterfly garden wasn't huge, but I thought it was pretty cool. There were several bouquets of the fake flowers that you could pick up to hold. I had dreams of adorable pictures of my children surrounded by butterflies...that definitely did not happen! Boden loved holding it but then would immediately start shaking the flowers so all the butterflies would fly away. And Rowan, who had been begging to go, was completely terrified! He hated them flying anywhere near him and totally refused to hold the flowers. Oh well!

Before we even left that morning, Rowan asked, "can you take a picture of me with the crazy lobsters." So...here it is. These lobsters really are one of my favorite things at the aquarium. So cool.

 LOVE Okinawa vending machines.

 Boden was completely in love with watching these turtles. This was his first time at the aquarium actually showing interest and excitement. It was so cute to see.

 I don't have a picture of the dolphin show, but it was one of my favorite parts of the day. Rowan was giddy with excitement. I told him that you had to clap to get the dolphins to jump high and he did his part in helping them jump. It was adorable. I just sat there watching the excitement in my kids' faces, it was so much fun.

After the aquarium, we hit up the splash pad right there and the climbing nets. I love these pictures, pure childhood joy. We were hot, sweaty, and tired, but we had a great time!

A few weeks later, we decided to go to the aquarium one last time. Grant hadn't been in over a year and he had a morning off between doing some checkout things so we decided to hit it up one more time!

 We found Dory!

 These are the same kind of jellyfish that swam in the ocean by our house. These are a little bigger than most of the ones we see usually though.

 Whale sharks are kind of an Okinawa icon. Karleigh's classroom theme this year is Destiny the whale shark, so we picked up some merchandise for her at the gift shop :)

Rowan saw a commercial for SeaWorld and that you can pet sting rays there, so he's pretty excited for that, but we're really going to miss this aquarium!