More Everett

I avoided the Mall of America's Underwater Adventures for years because of its stupidly high prices. Turns out that for a teacher, it's the best deal in town: free. Plus, Lyla was free since she is under three. I was in such high spirits that I agreed to pay the criminal price of $7.50 for the photo you see above.

Lyla has a stuffed seahorse at home that she named Everett after a boy at her previous daycare. You push its stomach and it plays music; I don't know, maybe the human Everett was the same way. So the seahorse tanks at Underwater Adventures excited her greatly. "Ev-et! More Ev-et! Ev-et!"

Just before the gift shop came the jellyfish exhibit, and Lyla informed me that the jellyfish were also named Everett, which I thought was a startling coincidence.

Home. Lunch. Nap. Zoo.

At the zoo (big animal day today), Lyla and I were walking along the Minnesota trail, which has a lot of, you know, Minnesota animals. There's a huge beaver dam, and a beaver was swimming all around outside it. I lifted Lyla to the ledge that kids like to stand on, and she pointed and said "Ev-et!"

"The beaver's name is Everett?" (I am proud to be the first person to ever utter that sentence.)

"Yeh. More Ev-et."

So we continued to the otter, whose name was also Everett.