Tampa Aquarium and Glazer Children's Museum

Our friend Maribel has some kind of annual pass, but each month she gets free or discounted admissions to museums around the Tampa Bay area. She has been so nice to invite Cannon and I since she can get up to five people in on her card.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Tampa Aquarium. This place is a lot bigger than Clearwater Aquarium and you can spend hours there! And that's what we did!

Cannon and Aiden


Cannon, Aiden, and DJ


He wouldn't touch the sting rays, but he touched the starfish.


He loved playing in these sea shells!




Me and Jess




Another neat thing they had was a HUGE splash park outside! It was one of the best one's I've ever seen! I didn't know to bring his swim suit, so he just went in his shorts. He loved it!


Then yesterday we went to Glazer Children's Museum in downtown Tampa. This place was amazing for so many reasons!

1. It was so clean and organized!
2. There were lots of workers there that would clean up after you (set things up for the next kids)
3. The layout was awesome! Instead of one large area with mass chaos, there were two levels. The first level was more of that open area, but upstairs was different. Each section was sort of self contained with each theme, but not like a room. I loved it because it had an open feel, but it kept the kids contained in that section until they were ready to see something else.
4. There were lots of ceiling to floor windows that allowed for lots of natural light.
5. It was quiet! I'm sure there are plenty of days that are busy and noisy, but there wasn't actually a lot of people there that day.
6. There was a variety of activities that appealed to different senses, interests, and developmental levels.

I took tons of pictures, but I'll just post some of Cannon's favorite things.

Fishing


The "Tampa Port"


Cannon is really into firetrucks right now, so this was a big hit!


This was really neat. You chose an animal to race and when the light turned green you were supposed to run to see if you could run faster than the animal.


Experimenting with air


This was probably Cannon's favorite thing to do! He danced for about 30 minutes and he probably would have stayed longer if I hadn't persuaded him to move along!


Afterwards we walked across the street and ate at 5 Guys, which I love! It was such a fun day!