Saturday Sunny Sea World

Saturday it was 75, sunny, and we were going to Sea World.

I think Seth was more excited than even the kids. I had packed a cooler the night before with fresh veggies, crackers, cheese, and fruit for lunch. Yes, that means we have to get our hand stamped and leave the park, and walk to our car to eat. When I was a kid there were a lot of "can't we do it like everyone else moments with my mom and dad." This was one of those things. I wanted to STAY IN the park and eat a $10, greasy fair food lunch like everyone else. In my old age, I realize that I would rather walk to my car and eat my own packed lunch b/c

1) I feel crappy after eating fair food and

2) all the stuff I could have bought for the $50 we spent on food

So know I am doing exactly what I used to make fun of and walking to the car...

The other funny thing I "wanted to be like everyone else" is when I started school my mom made me a sandwich on yummy home-made bread...so yummy, but this was all I knew when I was little so I did not know this. All the other kids had wonder bread sandwiches. So I complained to my mom that I wanted my sandwiches on wonder bread "like everyone else." Well.... I got what I wished for, and too my utter surprise I didn't feel cool or fitting in, I felt gyped b/c this bread tasted nothing like my moms home-made bread...UGH!

I digress....so with packed cooler, sunscreen, camera, sunglasses, and LOTS and LOTS of snacks and suckers...(what do you do when you need your children to be quite and sit still? feed their faces all day long) we headed out for the hour and a half drive to the world of whales, dolphins, and people dressed in wet suits.

We got there at the PERFECT time, which never happens to us, we are usually the "10 minutes late family". But we got to the pack with 10 minutes BEFORE they opened, which meant we could walk in and ride ANY ride Ryan wanted to ride with NO wait! Ryan has turned out to be a very very brave boy. I thought he might take after his father more and say no way, but this is what he wanted to ride this time....

The taller, faster, scarier the better for me so I grabbed his hand and we ran to the launch. It was so cool just walking right on the ride that the last time we went was an 1 1/2 wait time!!! when he got off the ride he yells,

" THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED!!!"

Then Seth went with Ryan to ride his favorite ride...a log ride with a 2 tall hills...not as scary as the above, but still pretty scary for a 5 year old....when he got off the ride he yells once more, " THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED!!!" What a cool kid.Then we went and saw the walrus and sea lion show...oh how funny! There is this part where the girl character says to the walrus, "how are you going to loose a few pounds" and this elephant sized thing with fins... rolls over on his back...exposing his nipply underside, puts his flippers behind his head and starts to CRUNCH UP!!! LOL!!!There were so many other funny parts like this. Those sea lions can be trained to do the most amazing things.

Then we went to the Believe show. This is the one with Shamu's great, great, great,great,great,great,great,great,great,great grandson named none other than SHAMU! We did NOT sit in the soak zone!

By then it was about 1 and this WALL of people entered the park. The once empty isles were filled side to side with people. UGH! We went out to eat (with the plan to come back) BUT after fighting our way to the car, (we were like fish swimming upstream against that wall of people) we decided to get in our car and drive away. But we still felt like we had done a lot and were content with that. After all we have season passes and can come back for free when ever we want.

Oh, and when we drove into our neighborhood, we drove to the back of neighborhood where there is a nature preserve with a trail and a stream with little waterfalls...Ryan had never been there before and HE LOVED IT! He wanted to keep going and was very quick to want to cross the stream bed, we kept telling him NO, because he was wearing his nice shoes...Seth said he saw a snake in the water, I thought that was it, he would never want to come back, but luckily Ryan and Ethan liked it and I think we have many more explorations back there to go! I hope I remember to bring my camera one time so I can show YALL!!! It's so pretty!