Spring Break day 2- Aquarium

After a night of almost NO rest, the sun so sweetly woke me up at 9:30! Everyone was still snoozing away, so I went ahead and got up to start getting ready before I had to get everyone else up!
One thing I love about vacation is there is NO schedule. No one has to wake up at a certain time, be home at a certain time, nothing. It is awesome. Everyone was pretty much awake by 10-10:15.
By the time everyone was dressed and beautified, and had breakfast, we were out the door about 11:45 to head to the Aquarium!  (check out the adorable shirts I found for M&M!!!)

I was kind of scared leaving the room. I was afraid of running into angry people who were awakened by Madison crying all night. Luckily I think they all left early bc we didn't see anyone, at all!
The Sheraton has a Starbucks downstairs, and included in our deal they gave us a $10 credit there! BONUS. Obviously we NEEDED coffee desperately!
Photo opportunity as we waited for our coffee!!

Outside the hotel there is a free shuttle that runs all the way down to the Aquarium. We def wanted to hop aboard! It was HOT outside. I imagined us walking that morning at like 9:30, so I figured we would all be good in capri's and jeans. HA. It was like 12:30 before we made it outside and I was ready for air conditioning immediately!
We waited at the first stop. And after 3 shuttles passed us FULL we decided to walk a little further down to another stop. While waiting I was snapping some pictures. Out of the blue this random stranger stopped and offered to take a family photo for us!! SO sweet!!

After walking a little further, we finally hitched a ride on the shuttle! It was a nice little ride too! All 5 min of it!
Aquarium was not nearly as busy as I thought it would be. I guess the time we arrived was actually perfect! Michael went in to exchange our passes from hotel into tickets, we waited outside and learned from more random strangers that Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop was doing a FREE ice cream cone day, all day! Um, I love the word FREE, and I hearing it ALOT on this trip!! Love it!!
I took mental note to go there after lunch!
There are two parts to the Aquarium, River Journey and Ocean Journey. We chose Ocean first. Great choice!!
I could go through each part of everything, however it's an aquarium. We saw fish, and stuff. lol. I have alot of pictures, so I will share the best of the best, and maybe a story or two.

Here we go!!

Sting Rays-

Butterflies- (thought this was weird in an 'aquarium' but it was cool, and they were pretty!)

 Maggie was the lucky one chose to hold one!!

Penguins!!-

Another very nice stranger offered to take our picture together behind the bars! I like people in Chattanooga. Very nice. In return we took their family picture for them too!!

Jelly fish and Crab tank-

 kids inside the aquarium!! I love Maggies face here!

 They had fun with this!!

 Best seat in the house!

Yeah yeah I know, NO flash photography. But its hard getting good pictures in the dark!

 Awesomeness.

Made it just in time for a bird show!!

 Baby turtle on its mommas back!!

Bye- Bye fish's!

*Aquarium pictures!!

 Hello LUNCH!! Michael and I didn't get any breakfast in, and we were starved!!!

Hello DESSERT! FREE dessert!

 Hello mess. Don't judge me, but this was like M&M's 2nd time with an ice cream cone!
They are SO messy, I usually opt for the bowl or dish. But seeing how much fun they had with this, we will have do so ice cream cones more often!! Maybe bribery for taking good pictures? ;)

Aquarium, lunch, and ice cream was pretty exhausting. But included in our hotel package were also Imax 3D tickets. These had to be used same day as Aquarium tickets. SO up next was a movie!!
We really wanted to see Born to be Wild (narrated by Morgan Freeman!) BUT the times weren't matching up for our schedule, SO we had to see Tornado Alley. At first I was like, ugh, can we skip it?? BUT I'm glad we didn't because it was actually really good!! And within the first 5 min, Maggie and Madison were snoozing!! That gave then a good 30 min nap to rejuvenate themselves ;)

 We decided to walk back to the hotel. Madison was still 1/2 asleep, and I didn't want to keep getting her in and out of stroller!

Once back in the hotel we SAT DOWN! Whew. Exhausting day but SO MUCH FUN!
Kids all behaved like angels. It was so rewarding for Michael and I to see them SO happy and really having a good time ;)
While I had fun swimming the night before. I was so tired and I knew M&M were too, we skipped the pool night. Michael got ready and took Abigail and Aaliyah down to the pool, while I took Maggie and Madison to get the van and go pick up dinner!
Before we left I asked for 2 cribs to be brought up to the room. In hopes they would help M&M sleep better!!! After the very nice ladies got those set up for me, we were off to pick up dinner!

When we got back we walked past the pool to grab everyone and head up to the room to eat!

Bedtime wasn't so horrible this time around. They both had a little nap so they weren't super exhausted. Everyone was up till about 10:30-11pm. We put M&M in the new cribs to sleep in. Maggie had NO issue at all! Madison got up crying a couple times. But slept for the most part ;)
Woot Woot!! A good nights sleep!! Just what we needed. BTW- Sheraton beds and pillows are seriously the best EVER!!

The next day wasn't so much fun. Little did we know what we would be waking up to....