A Day to Remember

Warning: If you are tired of looking at pictures of my daughter playing with animals, then you should skip this post!

We went to the aquarium again, ya'll! Lily Ruth's daddy had to work down there one day last week, so we went with him. Poor Daddy. We get to play, and he gets to sit in depositions...

Lily Ruth and I arrived just after they opened. It was very cool. Some of the trainers were cleaning the dolphin tank, and we got to wave at them and watch them use the same vacuum that we have for our pool. Then we wandered over to the amphitheater where they have the bird show. We watched an anteater take a sunbath for a while:

We wandered over and made silly faces at otters and pet a few rays. Then we went back to the dolphin enclosure just in time to see them come out for the morning! Lily Ruth ran along the window with them yelling 'Mama! My FRIENDS are HERE!'

Then the four of them shared a quiet moment:

THEN one of them came over by himself to smile at her!

She was terrified and ecstatic all at once. It was so exciting that we had to stay down there for a while...

We wandered back out to the bird theater in time for the show so that we could see our friend the anteater again. Lily Ruth actually ran down the steps in the middle of the show, and almost made it on stage to see her friend again! We stayed after the show, and got to know a bird:

But here's the best part - we asked nicely, and the trainers brought our friend back out for us! We got to pet her!!!

She was looking right at the camera with her darling face until I pressed the button :-/ That's Lily Ruth's hand in the bottom left corner. She's approaching an animal just like I taught her - slowly, quietly and with the back of her hand :-) Our anteater friend has an unbelievably soft nose, really rough, scratchy fur and she smelled like a ferret. It. was. awesome.

We did lots of other stuff like watching hermit crabs, yelling at otters, walking out on the boardwalk and melting down in the gift shop but our quiet, solo encounters with the dolphins and the anteater blew all of that away.

I love you, Lily Ruth. I can't wait until the day we can get in the dolphin tank together!