Moody Gardens visit

Dad here. On Saturday, January 8th, all four us spent the day in Galveston. First, we went to have lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. After lunch, Matthew thought the visit was over and wanted to go home. We knew better than to give in to the whims of a three year old. Instead we continued with our plans to go to Moody Gardens.

There, Matthew saw his first movie in a theater. Both parents decided beforehand to see how Matthew would react to seeing a movie on a big screen. We chose to test him on an IMAX movie since they are about half the running time of an average kid movie. Also, daddy had to be prepared to leave the theater if Matthew chose to do so or if he got scared by what he saw on the screen. With that said, that day, daddy and Matthew saw Ultimate Wave Tahiti in 3D. Too bad I did not take my camera into the theater so I could take a picture of Matthew wearing the 3-D glasses. He looked so cute with the 3-D glasses which must have been 10 sizes too big on him. Matthew flinched only once (that I saw) when big stingray was swimming toward us and banked at the last second -- typical IMAX effect but his first experience of something almost crashing into him. He did not get scared at all by the big waves as they were breaking right over us.

After the 3-D movie, we went into the aquarium. There, Matthew and Jacob experienced the Moody Garden's famous aquarium tunnel. Dad took lots of video footage of fish, both big and small, swimming overhead. He even got video of a big shark approaching the camera and swimming overhead -- just look at all those teeth! I could not help myself and I had to tickle the shark's belly.


The highlight, at least in my option, was when he saw the penguins, swimming underwater. Matthew said the cutest thing:


Matthew just recently seen the movie and the way he made the connection just floored me. As you can tell by me reaction, he came up with it on the spot -- and in no way was not coached what to say before the camera started rolling!