Georgia Aquarium

This past weekend was our second to last weekend down South and we decided to make a final trip down to Atlanta to visit the Georgia Aquarium. It is located in the same complex as the World of Coca-Cola, so we noticed it when we visited that back in April. We wanted to wait until Brady was a little older so he could enjoy it.

We watched Finding Nemo on the drive down, so Brady was primed to check out the fish and the first ones he saw, he ran to.

Reaching down to "pet" the stingrays. Unlike when we went to the Pittsburgh Zoo, he didn't almost end up swimming with them ;)

Time to try petting the horseshoe crabs.

Two horseshoe crabs came right up to me. Notice the jumbo shrimp on top of the one on the left. It actually jumped up at me and scared me half to death. Andy said I'll get my revenge when I'm eating its cousins on Christmas Eve.

Coming down from the awesome whale slide. You had to enter it from the level above. Brady loved it. He was too short to play in the main play structure and once he saw the area to play, he didn't want to do anything else. We didn't realize this area house the play area, so we should have saved it for last.

Look! The elusive Brady fish!

Brady checking out the albino alligator.

Piranhas. They're a lot larger than they're portrayed on television.

Japanese spider crabs. They can have up to a 13 foot leg-span. My mom would just love to sink her teeth into these babies.

Beluga whales. They kept charging at the glass and stopping short. It was really cool to see.

Manta Ray.

A little over a month ago, we were watching 19 Kids & Counting, and they actually were in Atlanta and made a trip to the Georgia Aquarium. This is when we learned that they actually have whale sharks there. They are the largest sharks and and is a filter eater. Growing up, my brother, Alex, LOVED sharks. His favorite was probably the whale shark and my mom even made him a whale shark costume for Halloween one year. So when we found out we were going to get to see some, I immediately thought of him.

We learned that in the wild the eat completely vertical, but since they can grow up to 40ft long, they would scrape the bottom of the tank if they ate this way. They have to be trained to eat horizontally.

The coolest part was that they didn't have just one whale shark, but three! I never thought in my lifetime I'd get to see one in person. I've seen them a million times on Shark Week and thought that was the closest I'd ever get to one. It was surreal to see them overhead and realize how truly large they are. Truly amazing creatures.

We wanted to commemorate our trip and the once in a lifetime opportunity to see whale sharks. We pulled this guy out and showed him to Brady, who instantly fell in love. The sticker price on this guy was $40 and there was no way I was going to spend that, no matter how cool our day was. Luckily, there was a smaller, much cheaper one, so we ended up with that one.

Visit to Atlanta

When we moved down south, we decided it would be nice to make a day trip to Atlanta sometime since we live less than 2 hours away. Something Andy and I happened upon one night watching TV was that the Coca-Cola headquarters is located in Atlanta and they do tours. This immediately sparked our curiosity since we are big Coca-Cola fans (many of Diet Coke and Coke Zero). We started off our day in Atlanta by visiting the World of Coca-Cola which is located in downtown Atlanta. The tour started with a small introduction by a tour guide and a small, funny animated video about what happens inside a Coca-Cola vending machine (it showed a lot of cartoon characters and how they all work together to get the bottle ready for the consumer). After that, we were able to check out the rest of the exhibits on our own and the first thing we did was meet the Coca-Cola polar bear. Brady loved him and laughed out loud several times! This gave us hope that he will love the characters when we visit Walt Disney World at the end of May.


There were many great artifacts within the World of Coca-Cola and one of them was the world's smallest and slowest-moving bottling plant. We got to walk through a tunnel that showed the entire process and had labels for every machine and stated their function. Another room, archived the history of Coca-Cola and had artifacts from all of Coca-Cola's ventures over the years. One of the coolest things for me was that they had a part in designing and sponsoring the Olympic torches over several years. Andy got to hold the one from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, which were happening when Brady was born. As you can see from the picture, Brady wouldn't be left out when his dad got to hold something so amazing.










There was a room that contained Coca-Cola pop culture items and this is where they had some really amazing artwork and artifacts. One of the things I couldn't resist was sitting on the couch from the Red Room for American Idol Season 4, when Carrie Underwood won. The last stop on our tour was the Taste Room where they had Coca-Cola sodas and drinks from all over the world and they were separated into Continents. Andy was quite fond of the drinks from Asia because they were really fruity. I enjoyed what is known as Bitter Lemon from England and we both agreed that Beverly from Italy was disgusting! We even got to try out the machine that allows for 106 drink combinations of Coca-Cola products. We had only ever seen it on TV and it was something we were itching to try. We tried several types of Diet Coke, Light Minute Maid, and Sprite Zero. Andy insisted that it would be momentous for Brady to try his first Coca-Cola at the factory, and although it was against my better judgment, agreed that he could have a SMALL taste. He seemed to like it, but it will be
many years before he has another.


















Next on our list was lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then Brady and I hung out in Olympic Centennial Park, while waiting for Andy to return the stroller and our souvenirs to the car. Brady very much wanted to jump into the fountain and it took all my strength to keep him out of the water. When Andy returned, we headed to Philips Arena, where we were going to take Brady to his first Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game! He loved hockey as a newborn, so we had a small idea that he would still like it. He was past due for a nap, so he was cranky most of the time and after the Pens went up 4-1 at the end of the second period, we decided it was time to call it a day. The final score was 5-2 in favor of the Pens, and they will advance to the playoffs as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference.