October 4

Today there were four main events.

Event #1:  Today was my birthday.

Event #2:  We went to the US coin mint.

Event #3:  We went to the Adventure Aquarium across the river in New Jersey.

Event #4:  We went to Friendly's for dinner.

Now to tell you about the events.  As you know, today was my 9th  birthday.  I got nine presents.  It was a coincidence.   My three favorite presents were Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl and Poke Park II.  Since we didn't have wii at the hotel, I didn't get to play the wii games. 

Our first stop of the day was the US Mint.  When we saw where the coins were made, we were very surprised it was about 4 football fields long but there were only 2 or 3 people working there.  We guessed the machines did all the work.  We saw them making pennies.  After that we went down to the gift shop and bought ourselves some gifts.  I didn't see anything I liked there so I took a picture in a photo booth instead.

After that we went to the aquarium in New Jersey. We heard from Christopher's friend's mom who lived in Philadelphia that we should definitely go to Adventure Aquarium. We didn't write down the names of all the fish and stuff because we found it was too much work.  Here were my favorite exhibits:  the penguins, the hippos, and the ginormorous tank with sting rays and manta rays.  We saw a show in the tank where some divers dove in and told us about their equipment.  The hippos were in an African river exhibit with some birds.  You were able to see the hippos really well through the glass.  In the bird part of the exhibit there was a sign that said, "WARNING:  Birds poop every 15 minutes.  How long have you been standing here?"

I got a robot ring that I think looks like my dad at work.  I also got a sea turtle stuffed animal.  I named him George.

I went to Friendly's for my birthday dinner.  I had  mini grilled cheese sandwiches.  They tasted very good.  The best part was my ice cream.  Here is what it was:  a double cone that has 2 places for ice cream scoops.  I had 2 scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough with cold melted marshmallow and carmel toppings.  It took me a long time to eat it because it was so messy.  My ice cream was the very best part of the day.