Manila Ocean Park with friends

 This is today's 2nd post-We went back to Manila Ocean Park with some friends on Saturday before Greg came home on Sunday.  Ashley, Jude (Scott's classmate) and Ryan looking at the big river fish

 Mom-look at that one!

 We saw Nemo and this really cool looking lionfish

 These are interesting eels

 Puffer fish

 The kids thought it was really cool to see a diver inside cleaning the tank

 a ray in the BIG saltwater tank

 Yes I was really there and have a picture to prove it!

 Entering the polar region-where the penguins live-this section has opened since we went to Manila Ocean Park and so we had to go back!  Wouldn't you know it though-there was a sign in the polar region that said "coming soon-tickets to have a penguin encounter and get to feed the penguins"  I want to do that too!  So we may have to come back, yet again!

 Climbing on the polar expedition vehicle

 Ryan-seeing just how high up he could climb

 Look at the penguins-aren't they neat?

 There enclosure was not as large as I had expected it to be and I think I counted 8 penguins total-most of the time we were watching, the penguins were swimming.  Maybe they didn't like the person in their enclosure with them.

 They really look like they fly through the water

 These are penguin statues standing up on the ice/snow

 Ryan

 They had an ice slide-you slid down in innertubes in pairs.  Scott and his friend Jude went down one slide and Ryan and I went down the other.  You had to be 4 feet tall to slide, so Ashley couldn't do it.

 This room was full of man made ice and snow-they gave us all jackets before we entered.  Ashley had a melt down and didn't want to put hers on and kept saying she didn't like it as we started in-as I have said more than once, you never know what you will get with kids this age!

 Scott and Ryan decided to take their coats off

 Ashley decided that it was ok but only briefly

 She was crying again and hiding her face when I asked someone to take our picture

 The kids got to pretend like penguins when we came out

 Here is Scott sitting with his friend Jude, in the green shirt-Aidan, his 4th grade brother, then their mom, Michelle-who is in my Moms in Prayer group that has been meeting at our house for about a month now, and in the orange shirt on her lap is their 3 year old, Zephyr.  Michelle's husband is a pastor here in Manila-this is their 2nd time living in Manila-after a year back in the US-you can read about their family's amazing testimony here on her blog-Steve's accident happened in June 2010.
http://steveruetschle.com/index.php/about

 Then we went to the sea lion show-I'm not sure who put on more of a show-them or Ashley.  When the sea lions were told to dance Ashley joined in-nearly fell on the people sitting in front of us and they laughed really hard watching her dance!  There were several people whispering, pointing to her, and taking her picture all day-we are still quite the oddity here!

When the rest of us come home, we may just leave Ashley here-she fits in so well with the dancing, singing, karoake part of the culture-I'm sure she would think nothing of singing loudly into a karoake machine at the mall.  Just kidding, she does really love stuff like that, but I promise we'll bring her back!