The Last Day of Summer

The last day of summer break I took the kids to the AZ Mills mall to check out the new Sea Life Aquarium and to get a caramel apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  The aquarium was kinda cool, but I didn't think it was worth the admission.  Luckily, we had some free admission coupons from the library, and another coupon, so the five of us got in for $40.  Even still, $8 per person to watch fish swim around in large tanks seemed kinda steep.  Oh well, it was fun to try it out, and the boys really enjoyed it (Cheyanna got bored about halfway through). 

The jellyfish and seahorses were my favorites.  

 They have these glass bubbles below some of the tanks where you can go under, and look up into the tank.  

We got to touch some starfish, sea urchins, and shrimp. 

Here's Carson in the shark tunnel.  See the shark swimming above him?

This is Cheyanna's "I'm done with this!" smile. 

We've always called the AZ Mills mall "the alligator mall" because when the kids were younger, they loved to visit the alligator outside the Rainforest Cafe.  I didn't get any pictures of the apple eating, but man--those are some good caramel apples.  My new favorite is the "around the world" apple with marshmallows and tiger butter.  It is so huge and rich and sweet that Charlie and I share it.  Cade and Carson like the oreo apple. The Rocky Mountain chocolate factory is on the exact opposite side of the mall as the aquarium, so we ended up walking the whole mall, but we managed to get out of there without any major fights and with very little complaint.  Good-bye summer break (and good riddance!).  Welcome back, school year with schedules and routines, and activities, and not being cooped up together in the house all day.  We didn't take any trips this summer, so the summer seemed hotter and longer to me than usual.  I asked the kids on the way home from the mall what their favorite part of the summer was.  Carson, Cade, and Cheyanna said Wet N Wild, and Carson added bowling and Amazing Jake's too.  Charlie said the best part of summer was sleeping in and hanging out with his friends.   My favorite part of the summer was watching Eclipse.  J/K (sort of).  My favorite part of the summer was hanging out with the kids, playing board games with them, going swimming, laughing, and watching Charlie and Carson's basketball games.