Sea World

Day 2 of our trip and it was time to hit up Sea World. We got there right when it opened at 10am, so as to beat the heat a little bit, but no such luck.  It was already HOT!!

We're used to theme parks in the heat though, so no worries.  We just put on our shades and sunscreen and forged ahead.

First stop--dolphins!  The kids LOVED being able to be super close to the dolphins.  They did a few tricks for us, too, which was cool to see.

Even Baby Cami got to see them and gave her grin of approval.  This girl smiled all weekend:)

A few minutes later her mama was smiling big too--Stephanie and two of her kids arrived!!

After we said hello to Steph, Sam and Caroline, we went into the aquarium.  Yay A/C!

We saw pretty sting rays...

but the sharks were the favorites.

As we were walking towards our next stop, guess who showed up?  Shamu! 

We were on our way to feed the Sea Lions, but got sidetracked for a little while in the kiddie zone. 

Jackson, Maddie, Lila and I went on the Shamu rollercoaster.  Not a big ride, but they liked it:)

The girls ran through the splash zone and then we were off to find those sea lions.

We bought some dead fish to feed the sea lions and all three kids picked up the fish...

waited for a hungry sea lion...

and tossed them down into their mouths.

Maddie was even brave enough to pick up the dead squid, too.  Yuck!

Then we walked over to the Shamu show.  Everyone was hot and sweaty by this point, so sitting down was a good thing.

First, we watched the Shamu Story (kind of lame) and then got ready to see some killer whales jump.

The big kids all sat on the row in front of us because it was the splash zone.  The little girls didn't really want to get soaked, so we sat right behind them.

Hooray!  The whales were cool, but the water didn't come anywhere near us.  J man was disappointed with his lack of wetness.

After the show, we needed some lunch.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat and ran over to the water skiing show nearby.  It was so neat, too!  Probably my favorite of the day.  There were fast ski boats and trick water skiers...

which kept this kid's attention the whole time.  Can we say "tourist?!"  He was so in awe of everything that he forgot to eat his lunch and waited until his burger got cold.  Oops.

There was also this man being lifted about 15 feet out of the water.  So cool!

And the finale featured a three-tiered human water skiing pyramid.  Very neat.  Maybe it'll inspire my kids to learn to water ski sooner rather than later.

By 2:30 we were ready to get back to the resort.  By the time we made the 5 minute drive back, all three girls were asleep.  They quickly woke up, though, and were all about going down to the pool.

These girlies love some inner tubes...

so fun!

We chilled on the steps for a few minutes,

then made our way over to the beach area.

Madison worked on a sand mountain,

while Cameron watched...

and then I took the girls to go make smores.

Jackson ran up soon after and made himself a smore, too.  Yum!

 

These three beach supervisors were hard at work.

The kids had a meeting...

and decided that they'd rather be in the water!

Cami and I agreed, so we hopped in, too.

Then most of us went for a few rounds on the lazy river.  That was one of my highlights of the whole trip, for sure:)

Jackson got to go down the big slide and loved it.

One happy kid.

I went down it and so did Gilligan!

That night, Kelly let the kids have her underwater camera.  They had such a great time with it.  Check out these faces!

 

 

As the sun was setting, we decided to just order pizza and eat it by the pool.  This girl got my lipstick and put it on herself.  Ha!

Then she asked Caroline if she wanted some, too.  Cracks me up!  Two fancy pants.  We ended up staying at the pool until after 9:00 that night.  By the time we got back to the room, the kids and us were seriously tired, but we'd had such a great time with our friends.  And that's what it's all about.