Time out with the fishies

Wednesday afternoon (this is after I recovered from my Monday and Tuesday at-the-office induced coma), with my wife and daughter complaining that they were getting cabin fever and that they hadn't really seen me in days, we took some time off. We drove down to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher and spent a couple of hours alternately following and hauling our daughter around.

We had been before, and we really enjoyed it. But this time was different. It is the off-season, and no one was there. It was wonderful. There were no mobs of school kids or tourists pushing and shoving, shouting and hurring. We could ask workers questions, and one took probably fifteen minutes showing my daughter various critters from the petting tank and explaining various things about them. (My wife's favorite was the conch that is a predator -- it preys on other shellfish, using some kind of acid gizmo to bore a hole through their shell and suck them out. Apparently this is what causes all those shells you find on the beach with a neat little hole drilled through them.)

Although I could ill afford the time away from my two jobs, at some points, I can ill afford not to take some time off with my family. With the car's transmission acting up, we were running late getting back to church (not late to the service, but later getting there than I like). But we had a nice time. I took a plethora of pics, but of course I haven't set up with a good file hosting place yet, so they'll have to wait for another time.