Ziggy's birthday and the Aquarium

 

Ziggy turning seven is a puzzle to me. He has just been such a funny, quirky, friendly, imaginative, role-playing, neighborhood-wandering little monkey for so long! It seems he should never, and would never, grow up! But seven-year-olds are grown up! They are full-fledged school children! Impossible that Ziggy could be such a thing…and yet, as I think over the last few months, I see that he has been asking lots of questions…wanting to have more serious little talks with me, about repentance and what Jesus is like and who is "the meanest animal"…reading harder stories and writing more words…confidently facing things that used to make him nervous. And so I have to admit that yes. He must be seven! But with hopefully his inimitable Ziggy-ness to remain forever!

We went on a morning birthday walk with him, ending where such walks should always end:

At the boulangerie!

Raspberry pie for Second Breakfast at home 

For Zig's birthday activity, we decided to go to the Quebec Aquarium. I had very low expectations since I'd read some reviews saying it wasn't that big or that great. We have a pretty good aquarium at home so I wasn't even sure we should bother with this one! But we ended up loving it. The polar bear was SO playful and cute and it would have been worth it just to watch him! We stood watching him throw his toys around in the water, diving and leaping after them and tossing them in the air like the hugest most playful dog. We loved it!

The aquarium is over by the bridge to Lévis, which we crossed on our first way into Quebec but have only been back near a couple times since.

We saw an Arctic Fox! (Why they have foxes and bears at the aquarium is a mystery to me, but we liked them.)

There were some playful seals in the water, and it looked like maybe they do shows sometimes there, but I didn't find anything about those on the website.

The aquarium is in several buildings and it was quite hot outside, so we were very happy to go into the "Arctic pavilion" where there was a film showing on big wall screens and it was absolutely freezing inside. It felt SO good! We stood there through several repeats of the film.

There were lots of cool jellyfish (the girls thought this one must be wearing a tutu and pointe shoes)

The octopus was so active and playful! It was swimming around, picking things up, changing shape and color and texture every few minutes. We love octopuses and have never seen one put on such a show in real life!

Spiky…then smooth!

The cuttlefish was in fine form too. It looked like a projector was projecting different light patterns across its back. It is utterly amazing that these animals can change their skin like this!! (And there were also cuttlefish babies!)

The rays in the touch tank seemed extra friendly too. Usually when I've tried to touch them at Sea World or at various Aquariums (aquaria?), they slip just out of reach and all I get is an unsatisfying swoosh of smooth wet skin. But these guys were practically coming up and begging to be petted! They'd swim closer and closer to the edge until we could stroke them right on their heads! Are Canadian animals just friendlier than their U.S. counterparts or something?? (We did observe a long time ago that Canadian ducks didn't seem as constantly mad as the ducks that lived by us in the States. Perhaps this is an extension of that phenomenon.)

This guy swam right up as if he wanted us to take a picture of him!

There was a cute little picnic area and playground where we had our picnic lunch afterwards.

So fun!

And we even got to watch some backhoes "skewping" on the way out!

Birthday Cake

Trying out one of his presents (some magnatile people to go with the magnatile set)

And his other present—a Canadian pompier costume! (Lucky they have these at the Costco here just like at home…except with a Maple Leaf patch instead of an American Flag on the arm.) He's not too big of a boy to wear costumes anymore, thank goodness! 

Zig also got some money from Grandma and Grandpa which he used to buy these cars!

And, to end, here are some pictures of our Back to School dinner this year. The kids helped pull together whatever we could contrive here for decorations and it turned out so great!

Hair curled by Daisy for the occasion

Goldie's little thoughtful touches

Zig's Quebec flag

Busy kitchen