Honolulu Aquarium and Zoo

One of the thing that we were really excited to do on our trip was to take Joseph to the aquarium and zoo.  Here's Joseph getting ready to enter the aquarium- we're pretty excited to see the fish.

One of Joseph's favorite activities at G & G Brems' house is looking at the fish tank.  So, we were excited to see Joseph's reaction to the aquarium; we definitely were not disappointed.  Overall, he really enjoyed the reef tanks and watching the fish.

It was really neat to see him pointing at different fish.

This first reef tank had a ledge that he could stand and shuffle along.  

We also really liked to watch the jellyfish float around.

And get into mischief with grandma.

After finishing up inside, we went exploring some of the outside exhibits.

And collecting leaves from the plants.

We got to check out a sea lion.

And a seal.

And chase a little bird around.  The bird obviously realized that Joseph wasn't much of a threat because it would just slowly walk instead of flying away.  Joseph definitely love chasing the bird.

After we finished chasing the bird around the aquarium, we went across the street to meet up with grandpa at the Honolulu zoo.  Joseph definitely enjoyed the zoo and seeing the animals. 

We also found some more birds to chase.

Because Joseph was in the middle of eating lunch and dropping crumbs, the birds were more than willing to be chased to get an occasional scrap of food that he dropped.

Although, when it was a bigger piece that fell, Joseph would try to fight the birds for his food back.  With some intervention from daddy, the birds won this big prize from Joseph.

We also decided to stop along the path and collect a few of the large leaves that had fallen from the banyan trees.
 

We had to stop by the hippos and take a picture with them- Jodie has a picture with her and the hippos at a similar age.

 We also found a Joseph-sized elephant.

We got to see an orangutang up close. 

Joseph also really enjoyed watching the monkeys swing from branch to branch.

Here is Kieran "blending in" with the monkeys and apes.

We got to take a little break on a turtle.

Joseph was really excited to practice giving grandpa some hi-fives.

We also got to see an alligator- Joseph hopes that his auntie Kirsten, uncle Shaun, and cousin Bowen never run into any in Florida.

We also got to check out some peacocks.

We also found out that Joseph likes Dippin' Dots.  A lot.

Joseph also got some "height inspiration" from the giraffes.  All the while, I only thought of the shirt that my brother and his wife gave to Joseph that has a giraffe on it saying, "hey, who you calling short?"

Now that we're able to walk pretty well, we rarely want to sit in our stroller- we want to push it.  One nice thing about it is he really tires himself out pushing his stroller around.

In the kids section, they had a very cool fish tank that you could stand in the middle of- as demonstrated by Kieran.

They also had a "goat experience" area with some extremely docile and mellow goats.  We didn't end up staying too long because we keep yanking the goats ear.  So, while the goat didn't do anything, we didn't want to subject the goat to too much abuse.  Anyway, Joseph really enjoyed petting the goat.

We also got to check out one of Joseph's favorite animals- well, at least animal sound.  So, we got a picture next to a model where you can practice milking a cow.

All in all, we had a very fun day and were definitely ready for bed when we got home.