the aquarium at MOA

While I would never visit the MOA as a tourist destination, there are definitely benefits to living near it. Yesterday was my nephew's third birthday so we met his Mom A (my sister) and his Dad R at MOA to go to the aquarium.

My sister A is pregnant with twins and is due mid-June. She looks great (of course, I didn't ever take a picture that featured her belly).

The aquarium recently changed hands and they remodeled it. They've added a ray pool with a bubble where you can see them up close and personal.

Of course there is the old stand-by the invertebrate pool where you can reach in and touch starfish and sea urchins etc. I love how A and R are interacting with the kids here.

Here is a display of garden eels, I was having fun using my flash to create reflections so you are going to have to work harder to see into the tanks but if you look you will see the garden eels - they look like funny single stalks of sea weed waving on the bottom of the tank floor.

Isn't this starfish cool looking?

Sea jellies.

One very cool thing about these tubular aquariums that you can walk through is you get to see the bottom side of fish. It is really amazing to see a shark's teeth.

Look kissy lips!!

They are still working on one area to convert it to a rain forest. I got a kick out of the sign which read "Please do not touch or feed the animals, it is bad for their health."