Teacher Appreciation Day at Ripley's in Gatlinburg

Every year Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg offers a special for teachers in the area. You can get yourself and one guest in for free and every other person in your party is half price (up to 4). This year Ripley's included all of their attractions for the same discount. This included the aquarium, the haunted mansion, the motion theatre, the museum, and two miniature golf attractions. We obviously knew that we couldn't take the boys to play putt-putt (discount or no) since we would inevitably be asked to leave. Our neighbor next door asked if we could babysit his daughter for the day so she went along. Becca is Corbyn's very dear friend so she was excited that we were asked to keep her. As it turns out, Becca has never been to any of the Ripley's attractions so that made it all the more sweet for us. We were thrilled to share this awesome experience with her.

The boys absolutely loved the aquarium. At every turn, they would say "LOOK!" or "FISH!" They enjoyed playing with all of the interactive valves, dials, etc.

One of the funnest areas to play is in the hollow tanks. These are tanks where you can crawl up inside and appear to be within the tank with the fish. All of the kids enjoyed these! Micah even had company once! Take a look...

We also got to peer down inside the tank with the sting rays and small sharks. You are allowed to reach in and "pet" the sting rays (just not the stingers - duh!) The boys were excited at the prospect of going swimming so this part of the visit was cut a little short. People were watching to see which one fell in first.

As you can see from the above photo, chocolate ice cream was also included in the trip. Please see the slide show at the bottom for additional aquarium photos of the children and the wildlife (see if you can tell the difference).

Following the aquarium, we venture off to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. We had always been curious about the freaky things inside but never wanted to pay admission. We decided to take advantage of discount days and proceeded inside. It wasn't long before Corbyn began to fall apart and become terrified by some of the exhibits. She was frozen in terror so we decided to wait downstairs at the entrance until Randy could walk through. Before we went down, the children and I rode the elevator up to the next floor just to see what we were missing. Low and behold, there was an interactive floor and the children had a blast (even Corbyn). Here are the boys in a gigantic chair. I said, "come on boys and let mommy take your picture" and this other little boy who had been playing with them came along too.

I know what you're thinking about the pacifiers. We plan to lose them after fall break. In their defense, it was after their bedtime in this photo and they were pretty tired but we still had a great time.

Here is a photo of Randy next to the tallest man.

Due to Corbyn's semi-hysteria at the museum, we concluded that the haunted mansion was obviously out. Randy took Corbyn and Becca into the movie motion theatre though and they really enjoyed the ride. We finished off the evening with a stop at the Smoky Mountain Candy Kitchen. Corbyn and Becca chose chocolate and gigantic lollipops and the boys got chocolate bear suckers. They weren't given the suckers until Sunday after church.

Here are the rest of the Ripley's adventure photos...