Maarit's Underwater Adventure

Maarit recently visited her cousins, Chloe and Hanna and her Auntie Tarah and Uncle Kurt in St. Paul. While there we were able to spend part of a day exploring Underwater World on a tip from our friend Craig. Maarit loved it and she and her cousins had a great time.

Chloe, Maarit, Daddy, Tarah, Hanna and Nana Lorraine checking out the Alligator Sturgeon.
Maarit, Daddy and Mommy looking at Shark Cove.
Maarit especially liked the rays, here she is showing us one above her.
We tried to get the girls to slow down enough for a picture of the 3, but as you can see Maarit can't keep her eyes off the fish!
A reef fish checking out Maarit.
The girls all loved the Seahorse exhibit. There were many different kinds of seahorses, each in their own environment. They were a lot of fun to watch.
Chloe, Maarit and Hanna checking out the seastars and other touchable creatures. Maarit had a hard time leaving the 'splashing area'. She really enjoyed the water and touching the different animals, especially fun was knocking the seastars off the sides, which wasn't really nice so we had to stop.
Maarit, proud as can be! Check out her stickers.
And after all that excitement she looked like this:
Chloe and Hanna, Maarit's Treasures: Maarit ADORES these two and wants so badly to be big like them. She loves the toys they share with her, the fact that they have so much fun stuff to do and explore at their house and that they take such good care of her.
After all that water and fun the girls went back to Koch's and had even MORE fun with water. Here they are sharing in the pool.
Hanna and Chloe shared their beach balls, which Maarit chased around the pool, often going face first in the water after them!
And while swimming the girls enjoyed icy-pops, it was Maarit's first experience with these treats and she had to try everyone's icy. She was so thrilled!
And with Daddy's green one...
At the end of her very busy day Maarit got to spend some quality going night-night time with her Uncle Bubs (my brother Kristopher). She showed him the magic mirror (video of this new all-time favorite toy she's borrowing from cousin Hanna soon, adorable!) show him her climbing and standing moves and then she passed out...poor girl, such a BIG day for her.
The next day we visited my friend Cori, recently back from South America. She hadn't seen Maarit since she was 2 months old, lots of changes. Hopefully we'll get to see her again soon for a longer visit.
It was a short visit because Daddy had an appointment early Sunday morning for (if you can believe it) selling his trusty old truck. We drove with Nana to Duluth and then headed home. Justin got his truck ready to go and a couple came at 9am on Sunday and took it away....Justin is adjusting well. He says to say that he traded it away for a couple hundred dollars, a Gene Larkin rookie card and a Kevin Kostner signed baseball. (He wishes!) He decided that it didn't make sense to have a vehicle that Maarit couldn't ride in with him. We were going to get a van, but he surprised us with a fancy SUV instead. Maarit and I are pretty excited to have a vehicle that fits us and all our traveling stuff so well. Uncle Kurt says we've sold out, it's true...SUV, gas powered lawn mower and cable tv all within a few weeks. I don't even know us anymore!

We did take some farewell pictures of Maarit driving the truck..they were on a different camera though so we'll get them posted sometime later. After the Underwater World experience I can't wait to take her to see Sarah at Duluth's aquarium. I had a hunch that she' d like seeing the fish, but now I know that she'll love getting close to all the fish especially since there many exhibits are just the right size for her to stand next to and see and I will bet that she'll really love the otters!