DMV Destination Wedding & Portrait Photography

Let’s Go to the Aquarium!

Ever since moving to Georgia, we’ve heard how awesome the Georgia Aquarium is (I mean I think even if you don’t live in Georgia, you know it’s awesome) and we kept saying we were going to take little Bean. Well, now that she’s a year old, we thought it would be the perfect time to take her. 1. Because it’s free for her to get in (and lets be real, outings like these are not cheap), and 2. She’s old enough to enjoy it and learn from it. But since she most likely won’t remember her 1st trip to the aquarium (although, I’ve heard some crazy stories about people even remembering being in the womb!), I made sure to bring my big girl camera to document some lifestyle images from the day! It drives my husband nuts when I bring the big camera anywhere because it takes us twice as long to do something (you should see all the photos I have of him from our trips to Paris (or honestly, any of our trips) lounging on benches while he waits for me to finish taking a gazillion photos “of the same thing from 100 different angles” haha). Afterwards though, he’s always happy to have the photos (and bugs me to send them to him and complains if he doesn’t get them before the blog does haha). I probably took way too many photos, but can you really have too many photos? I don’t think so. (I’ve really tried my best to narrow them down, I promise!) Here are some of my favorites from our trip to the Georgia Aquarium! I hope you enjoy them, and if you haven’t been yet, definitely go!

 

Starting our Aquatic Adventure

The first exhibit we walked through was the Ocean Voyager, and was definitely the best one to start with as you walk under a tunnel with Whale Sharks, Stingrays, Manta Rays, turtles, and a ton of other sea life swimming above and all around you! This was definitely a great place to start with a little one because she was immediately immersed in the whole experience!

 

I loved watching little Bean see everything for the first time!

 

I don’t know what this fish in the photo on the left was, but he was huge!

 

So thankful that even though my husband doesn’t have quite the enthusiasm for documenting the everyday moments like I do, he has a great eye, and has taken the time to learn a little about the technical aspect so he can get precious shots like this!

 

This guy looked pretty tough!

 

I think she loved seeing the whale sharks! I was lucky enough to swim with them in Mexico (Thank you again Maureen from http://www.thehouseofflynn.com for making that possible) and it was an experience I’ll never forget (these guys were a bit smaller than the ones in Mexico haha)!!

 

So sweet!!!! My momma heart can’t take it!!

 

Loved getting to see the Belugas! I had no idea they were so playful (and so blubbery, they looked like balls of rubber swimming around hehe)

 

I don’t know why, but I just love their tails! They kind of look like fancy hearts to me!

Off to See the Puffins & Penguins!

This little guy was quite the model! If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was striking a new pose with every click of the shutter!

 

What a handsome little fella!

 

Look at those TOES!!! (ok, they’re probably not called toes, but they’re still cute!)

 

I had no idea how fast of swimmers Puffins are! These little devils were so hard to get a clear photo of!

 

Little Bean looks pretty tired at this point, but poor thing has a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and she refused to take a nap for the whole 6 hours we were there! Here she is checking out the penguins and puffins! (Penguins are some of mommy’s favourite things and I loved watching her watch them!)

 

Check out these guys! I think they were called Weedy Seadragons. So cool!

 

Loved the bright colours of these guys!

 

Next we checked out the Pirañas! These guys seemed pretty tame though and wouldn’t show their teeth

 

So dangerous, but so pretty!

 

Then we checked out these coulorful little guys! The blue ones seemed to glow!

 

This little guy on the right was playing a game of hide-and-seek!

 

And I even managed to find a PURPLE starfish!!

 

Checking Out the Zebra Fish

 

Ok, so I may have taken way too many photos of these little guys, but they are just soo neat looking! And I especially loved the one that looked like he must have been grandpa zebra fish. He just looked so grumpy to me and I couldn’t help but giggle every time I saw him (and sing grandpa fish do do do do do do, grandpa fish do do do do do do hahaha).

 

Grandpa fish!!!! (or so I called him)

 

So pretty!

 

Look at that tail!

 

So definitely took way too many photos, but these guys were just so neat looking, I couldn’t help myself!

 

Then it was off to be mesmerized by the Jellyfish! I could watch them float around all day. So relaxing!

 

We found another (I think, I’m not sure, the place was so big and it was easy to get a little lost) underwater tunnel, and took some more photos of Bean watching the fish (although at this point I think she was doing more people watching haha).

 

I think she was smiling at all the people ohhing and Ahhing over how cute she is (I mean, can you blame them?)

 

Totally mesmerized by something swimming by!

Our Day Comes to a Close!

The aquarium had so much to look at, but also included some fun shows! Unfortunately though, they didn’t allow photography during the shows (so as not to distract the animals) but little Bean had so much fun getting to see the Sea Lions perform (and we were sitting pretty close so she really got a good view. It was so cute watching her clap and point at them), and getting to see the Dolphin show! The Dolphin show has a soak zone that we stayed out of this time, but when she’s a little older (like maybe 5ish) I think she’d get a kick out of sitting there! We also caught the tail end of the Penguin walk (definitely going to pay attention to what time they do that next time cuz ummm penguin waddles are just the cutest)!

After the dolphin show we went to visit them up close and it was so cute how playful they are! This one dolphin was playing with a kid through the glass and  then seemed to pose for our photos!

 

Definitely posing, don’t you think?

 

We had so much fun and I can’t wait to take little Bean back again when she’s a little older and will hopefully remember the trip. Until then, we have this beautiful photos to look back on and I hope you enjoyed getting to see them as well!