Vacation part 2

After visiting Grandma on Tuesday and the beach on Wednesday, we decided to do a theme park on Thursday. My parents also decided that it was time to go visit their other grandkids in Arizona, so we basically swapped houses for a few days.  They got the 110 degree weather for 3 days, and we got 78.  Fair trade I say :)  It was also the perfect weather for a day at Sea World.  Because my parents live in Orange County and Sea World is in San Diego, we had to get up a little early so we could make the hour and a half drive to get there, but it was WORTH IT.  Our kids had never been there before and I've been twice, I've always wanted to take them.  It was a breezy, sunny 77 degrees the day we went, and still... no sunburns.  Except the back of Austin's neck, but I guess he's just not that good at putting sunblock on himself.  I, however, am an expert sunblock applier.  It's a gift.

Sorry about the picture overload, but it's Sea World.  Every animal is cute and amazing.

The first show we saw was "Blue Horizons", which is the dolphin show.  I wish I'd thought to take videos instead of pictures, but that didn't occur to me until later.  Oh well.  The kids weren't fans of sitting in the bleachers waiting, but once they saw the show they figured out that it was worth it.  It's like waiting in line at any other theme park, only you get to sit down.  Who wouldn't love that?

We also got to feed the Sea Lions, (by throwing them dead fish... ew) who were loud, obnoxious, and greedy.  We loved it.  One Sea Lion even stole a fish right out of another Sea Lions mouth, the selfish little turd.  The one on the rock in the center was so loud we had to cover our ears, he could be heard around the park.

 This Sea lion was a lot louder before I pulled out the camera, then he just started moaning.  Until someone threw him a fish, then he started begging again.

The Sea Lion show was really funny, they were making fun of shows on TV.  They did CSI, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, and a couple others.  It's amazing what you can train these animals to do!

Sea World isn't all shows, there are a few rides.  Grace liked all but one, which was the roller coaster.  She was more than tall enough, just not quite brave enough.  She blamed me for scaring her to death the rest of the day.  So I guess we can cross Six Flags off our list for next year.

Half the rides are designed to get you wet, which felt really nice.  River rapids (where Ben and I got soaked), and Atlantis, which is like Splash Mountain at Disneyland, got us nice and wet.  Atlantis actually had a spot on the bridge where you could stand and get splashed by the ride every time it went by.  Ben and Ember stood there for a bit to get good and wet before we got in line ourselves.  I also had the foresight to bring a big ziploc bag to put the camera and cell phones in for each ride.  No electronics got damaged :)

My favorite show was probably "One World", which is the Shamu show.  It's amazing that a killer whale can throw it's entire weight out of the water and into the air like that.  Also, not only are the rides designed to get you wet, but so are the shows.  There's a section of the bleachers called the 'splash zone' where if you decide to sit there, you WILL get wet.  We never actually got to do that, you have to get there early, but check out that picture of Shamu using his tail to soak the audience... maybe it's a good thing we missed that experience.

For theme parks we always make the kids wear tennis shoes, but we didn't realize what bad shape Ben's shoes were in.  He'd been trying to tell us all summer, but we forced him to wear them to Sea World anyway. His feet were killing him because Elphie had chewed on his shoes, so he had to walk funny just to keep them on.  We had made a previous decision not to buy any souvenirs, but I made an exception for Ben and bought him a new pair of flip flops.  We made a little ceremony out of throwing away those terrible shoes.  His feet felt fantastic the rest of the day :)

The shark encounter is really cool, you actually walk through a tunnel underground that is under the shark aquarium, so they swim over your head and all around the sides of you.  Ben wanted a stuffed shark from the gift shop when we were done, but he settled for a picture of the shark eating his face instead.

Sea World's new attraction this year is Turtle Reef, and I just love Sea Turtles.  Who doesn't love Crush and Squirt from Finding Nemo?  And of course, at the end of every attraction they have the gift shop.  Marketing genius, parents nightmare.  Ember loved the little stuffed turtle, and also had to settle for her picture taken with it.  And as long as we were taking pictures with merchandise and not buying it, she put on the shark headband to model also.

The Arctic Circle was fun to visit, to see the penguins and Polar Bears.  It was freezing inside, the kids couldn't wait to get back out into the sun.  The setup was a shipwreck frozen in the ice, modeled after a real ship that got lost there in the 1800's.  They also had a helicopter simulator ride, taking a tour of the Arctic shelf.  Austin's thick Alaska-homesick blood felt right at home, but the rest of us desert rats couldn't wait to get back into the heat.

We also got to see a Beluga Whale, which was pretty cool.  There was a mother and baby and the baby whale attached it's nose to the mother and followed her wherever she swam, it was adorable.  The babies aren't white, they're grey, they turn white when they mature.  These whales also can't do the tricks that the dolphins and killer whales can do, they are too top heavy and can't throw themselves out of the water.

The day ended with fireworks, and then a long drive home back to Orange County.  We didn't get home until just after midnight, and it was easy to drop the kids into bed without a fight.  We had a blast, and would love to go to Sea World again someday.  And don't worry, there's more vacation pictures to come!