Continuing the animal theme of this trip, we decided to take the boys into NYC to visit the Bronx Zoo.  Getting there from central New Jersey was possible using only public transportation but the trip would have been long and complicated, involving trains, subways, and buses.  We decided to drive in, which was not without its own challenges, but we survived the George Washington Bridge and made it through the Bronx with only one interesting question about the surrounding area (“Mom, what are booty-enhancing jeans?”). My sister and her family also drove in from NJ and my brother and his …

Although I probably went more than twice in my life, I have two main memories of Six Flags Great Adventure from when I was a kid.  The first was driving through the safari in the family station wagon.  The second was going in high school for “Physics Day”, where we had to complete a worksheet with questions that applied physics principles to the rides in the park. The latter was memorable mostly for the novelty of going to an amusement park for a school field trip.  The former was memorable because a monkey jumped on the hood of our car …

After seeing the Adventure Aquarium from afar while on the Ride the Ducks tour in Philadelphia, we headed back across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to explore it in person.  The aquarium’s claims to fame include housing the largest collection of sharks on the East Coast and being the only aquarium in the world with a hippo exhibit. The Ocean Realm and the Shark Realm are the two biggest tanks in the aquarium.  The Ocean Realm is the larger of the two and houses everything from sting rays to sea turtles.  It has huge viewing windows and (my kids favorite!) a …

Every summer we spend a week in August with my family in New Jersey and we often take day trips from there to explore the surrounding areas.  Philadelphia is about an hour and 45 minutes from my parents’ house.  I had long been interested in checking out Adventure Aquarium (across the river from Philadelphia in Camden, NJ) and JB had just learned about the Liberty Bell in kindergarten.  It seemed like a perfect time to explore Philadelphia. The drive was easy and to simplify things we parked right in the parking garage at the Independence Visitor Center.  Aside from providing …

Our family is a huge fan of aquariums.  North Carolina has some fantastic aquariums but unfortunately none of them are within a day trip of Charlotte.  When our boys had a Tae Kwon Do tournament in Greenville, NC, we decided to head to the coast afterwards for a short weekend beach getaway.  We spent some time in Wrightsville and Carolina Beach, but the highlight of the trip was our visit to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher in Kure Beach, NC. The aquarium is broken down into three main sections: the Cape Fear Conservatory, the Marine Building Upper Level, and …

My oldest is a huge Lego fan.  Our house looks like a Lego battlefield.  There are pieces strewn across the floor like land mines just waiting to be stepped on.  Every tabletop in the house has random pieces scattered across it.  I find pieces in pockets when I do laundry, in between couch cushions when I straighten up, even in the bath tub.  They are everywhere.  So I always knew he would love LegoLand, but at 8 years old, I figured he was creeping up on aging out of the theme park.  So when we decided to book a Disney …