Some Outdoor Fluffing?

Hosted by "Southern Hospitality"
Another fluffer over here! I'm ready for Spring and Easter!
I can't wait to put together my table!
Thank you Rhoda for hosting such a fun event!

Hosted by "A Southern Daydreamer"
In light of our current economy, we put our whole family on a 10-day "Being Self-Reliant" project. Meaning, we will not be spending money on anything outside of bills and necessities. Remember my newly organized pantry?
That was the part of the preparation step for this project. We made sure to have a good handle on our inventory to see if we really can live on what we have. We also turned off the TV and minimal computer use during this project as I am a blogger and an online college student. For 10 whole days, We will handwash most of the dishes, only use lights as needed and make big batches of meals so we don't cook everyday.
Monday was the last ditch day to get what we needed and things we can do in the house and to kick off Spring Break on a good note. Well, this past Monday, we took the kids to the Dallas World Aquarium, where you have to go outside, to see what's inside!



That's the view from the parking lot. Let's go inside - they have an almost cave like entrance to start your illusion that you are entering a whole new world...

See the exotic "elephant's ear"? But if you look beyond them, you'll see across the street in Downtown Dallas!

Now further inside is this main waterfall that crashes down into the main aquarium below. Yes, to see how big this small place is, you have to go down, down, down...

This is the surface of the main aquarium where a HUGE manatee resides with his friends; several gigantic catfish, humongous turtles, and various other big fish!

They also have funky looking succulents if you look hard enough and tons of bromeliad varieties to simulate a rainforest jungle!

Of course, they also have penguins to greet you on the next floor up after you pay for admission, right by the stairwell.

And in the middle of it all, a mini ecosystem perfect for exotic monkeys,

And toucans that love their blueberries, especially those hand fed to them.

They also have Sea dragons that look like floating weeds, in their international oceans bubble aquariums. The name of this particular one, I forget of course, inspired the dragons in the Chinese Mythology! How cool of an information is that, huh?

And even giant clams from Australia!


They even have a shark viewing tunnel as well as glass wall to see the manatees and huge ocean creatures they house at the very bottom! They also had spiders that eat birds and bats as small as a mouse!

TABLESCAPING IDEA: ("Brain loves seeing animals, so she was very inspired!) Take your pictures and learn some cool trivia about the animals you choose. Print out those pictures and place them in plastic bags (to protect from spills) and faced down on the table scattered around a low floral centerpiece of anemones or anything related to the animals you choose. Tie your napkins with a piece of 1-2 trivial info on it and when your guests arrive, use these as games throughout dinner! Take turns saying the info and shuffle the faced down photos and see if they turn over the right one! If they do, they get to choose who's next, but if they don't, the person sitting next to them gets the next turn!

I hope you enjoyed our trip to the World Aquarium here in Dallas, Texas. I sure enjoyed your company! Thanks Susan for another wonderful Outdoor Wednesday. Visit as many blogs today so you can have a great Spring Break as well as your children!