Ocean Adventure

Last weekend we decided to take the boys and head out of Manila.  We had heard that Subic had a great aquarium so we decided to head out there and depending on how the day went maybe go to the beach for a bit after that. It’s pretty far, two and a half hours, but we decided to give it a try.  Worst case we have two kids crying in the car, we could live with that.

We were trying to leave really early and managed to get on the road at 7:15. Not too bad, considering it takes us an average of forty minutes to get out of the house these days. When I told Randy what I had packed for the day he turned to me and said, wait is that what you’re bringing to Greece (where we’re going for a month)?  Nope, just for the day, just wait until Greece Randy.  I brought four diapers for each child, two extra outfits for each, bathing suits for all and a towel for each of us.  Adam’s swimmies and beach toys (all this in case we made it to the beach after the aquarium).  Tylenol for Adam who had a runny nose, just in case he got a fever.  A bag full of snacks and waters because there is nothing worse than being stuck in a car with a hungry/thirsty toddler and have nothing to offer him. An Ipad and a kindle, our camera, two kids books and three toy cars. We also had two strollers, two car seats and two children.

This little nugget was so excited he could hardly contain himself.

After three hours and fifteen minutes in the car….we finally arrived.  We only stopped once, but with two diaper changes, bathroom trips for the adults, feeding Malcolm and a happy meal for Adam all in it took us thirty minutes to get back on the road.

Here’s Adam enjoying a snack at the rest stop.  He LOVED sitting in the front seat to eat his snack!

First on the agenda a sea lion show.

Then we headed off to see the sharks and fish.  There weren’t really that many fish or sharks but luckily Adam is still young enough to think that the one shark swimming around was more than one.  There were a lot of jellyfish at least.

We had a great day with the boys and both were amazing in the car and in the heat walking around the aquarium.  Adam even went all day without a nap, which is impressive considering we were in the car for seven hours.  But the aquarium was not worth seven hours in the car.  The Manila aquarium is bigger and better and only 25 minutes away.  This aquarium is great for swimming with dolphins but Malcolm and Adam are still a little young for that, although Malcolm really wanted to.  Adam was happy to see sharks and we were happy that no one had a meltdown in the car.

All in, our first road trip a success!