So this post is long. It was a such a great weekend and I wanted to record all of the detail. So, stop, go get your popcorn and coke, or your donut and coffee and make a bathroom stop before you come back so you can really relax and enjoy. Or, just scroll down and look at the pictures because a) my kids are cute, if I do say so myself and b) the animals are amazing.
Here we go...In honor of Silas' birthday and with my cousin Katy's help, we took the boys to SeaWorld. They were SO excited. I made a paper chain to count down the days. Unfortunately, Katy got stuck in Chicago in one of this winter's intense storms so we had to delay a week, which kind of threw off the whole paper chain count down. But, we picked it back up a few days before and the boys didn't miss a beat. (Don't ask Joel about why you can't fly over snow....)
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| Cutting the last link... |
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Tomorrow we go see the whales!
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Katy flew in on Friday morning and the boys and I picked her up at the airport. We played at the park and made the mandatory stop at In-N-Out for a burger. After naps, we headed over to Violet's for mini-cupcakes, and after dinner, we had to make a stop at Pasadena's famous 21 Choices for frozen yogurt. (By the way, we "discovered" our own fantastic creation....vanilla yogurt, cheesecake pieces, strawberries and graham crackers. So. good.)
Anyway, we got up
early Saturday morning, loaded up and headed out. We made great time and got to San Diego about an hour before the park opened so we found a little playground and the boys burned off some energy. Finally we got to SeaWorld and headed right inside.
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| Silas is turning 2 with Shamu! |
First up...the penguins...
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| Blurry picture but I love David's face. He was impressed. or shocked. or surprised. |
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| Just another day in the tank.... |
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| I like that David is smiling and the boys are very interested in something else. |
Next up, the beluga whales and polar bears. The whole setup was kind of an arctic rescue.
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| Silas liked this helicopter. |
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| The beluga whale. They were so amazingly white. The picture does not do them justice. |
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And the polar bears were incredible under water.
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Warning: Stepping on soapbox....As we walked down into the exhibit we saw this cool "ice cave" showing where the polar bears would live. It looked like a great photo op. I tried to convince Joel to go in but he was hesitant. David sauntered in and YIKES! There was a VERY sudden and VERY loud bear
(recording) growling at him. It was so scary! David jumped. I jumped (outside the cave) and Joel's eyes got as wide as saucers. He was petrified. Poor kid! He kept saying, "I don't want to go in there. That cave is scary. The bear will get me." They really should have a warning sign. A few minutes later we heard a little girl, about Joel's age, scream at the top of her lungs, followed by a few minutes of wailing. Her mom's face was white and she was stumbling over her words, "We didn't, didn't know it would growl. We had no idea." I felt bad for both of them...the little girl and her mother! So, Sea World, if you're reading...put up a warning!
Ok, stepping off soap box and back into our lovely SeaWorld experience...
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| Silas was in awe of the bears. |
Next we headed to the shark exhibit. The boys loved this, too, of course. As we left the top of the tanks, before heading down below into the tunnel, they had a little pool with baby sharks and a few other fish. Silas quickly spotted, "Nemo! Two Nemos! Dory!" which was especially funny because all week he told me he would see "Two Nemos and Dory". As we rode the moving sidewalk out, Silas kept talking about Nemo and Dory so the lady in front of us pointed out that we were looking at Bruce (the shark from Nemo). Joel thought that was hilarious.
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Joel was telling us to say, "Cheese!"
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Let's take a brief moment to talk about the disposable camera in the picture with Joel. I bought the camera to take with us to the shows and around the dolphin tank where we might get wet. Well, Joel quickly absconded the camera but he could not figure out why he couldn't see the picture immediately after he took it. He took all kinds of pictures. I still need to get it developed and I can't wait to see what memories he captured.
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| A rare candid shot of LB. Joel wanted to take my picture in front of the shark. |
We left the sharks and headed for the dolphins. The boys were checking them out while I went to find out about feeding the dolphins. At one point they waved to the dolphins and the dolphin waved, er, splashed back. David was in shock and the boys weren't sure whether to laugh or cry. I think they thought it was funny but didn't really want it to happen again.
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Hi Dolphins!
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I caught back up with them and they were showing me the dolphins. Suddenly a dolphin started to swim away, turned back to "wave" and then sprayed a direct shot at ME! I mean, the boys got wet again, too, but I was soaked. And somehow, in an attempt to NOT get wet,I turned around and managed to soak my front and back, all the way to my underwear! That dolphin had quite the sense of humor. The trainer standing nearby thought it was hilarious and later explained that a) the dolphins do aim at certain people, b) the dolphins know when they get a big reaction and like to repeat that and c) the dolphins are tricky....they swim away, waving, so you let your guard down and then Bam! you're soaked!
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s-o-a-k-e-d!
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Next we headed over to the Blue Horizons show. This show had dolphin, pilot whales, birds, divers and acrobats. But the stadium was H-O-T! It was almost lunch time and we were facing the sun.
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| Silas waiting for the show to start. |
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| Joel and his shades |
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| Flight of the Dolphins |
Before the show started, the announcer was explaining some of the background info relevant to the show. When he started talking about the pilot whales, Joel looked at me and said, "Piwot whale. That's funny. I didn't know about piwot whales" He was really amazed that there was something called Pilot Whales. And he still talks about them. Your trivial trivia for today is that these are the only two performing pilot whales in the world. And, you're welcome.
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| Surfing the pilot whale |
The show was very narrative driven and watching the acrobats and divers was really interesting...but not to a 2 year old. With about 10 minutes left in the 25 minute show, Silas was done. It had been about 5 minutes since any of the animals had been out in the tank and he was done. It was hot. He was bored and he was leaving, with or without us. David took him out and Joel decided he was right behind them. So, we missed the last 5 minutes or so of the show.
On our way to see Shamu, we stopped to see the Sea Lions. The boys really liked interacting with them.
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| Hello Mr. Lion. |
We finally made it over to Shamu stadium. We were probably pushing the boys a little too much at this point. They were both pretty tired and it was still a little warm. Joel was pretty fascinated with the whales and really got into the Shamu splash. Silas was mildly interested but we held his attention with cars. Thank goodness we stopped back by the show at the end of the day.
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| This looks like a yawn but it's actually Joel's reaction the first time Shamu jumped out of the water. |
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| Why, hello there! |
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Mommy and me!
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After Shamu we headed out to the car to eat our sack lunches. It ended up being our best decision of the day. The boys were able to decompress a bit while eating their PB and J's and we all felt much better.
Joel had seen the Sesame Street Bay of Play rides so we headed there next. Joel climbed up a huge net with David while Silas climbed through some tubes and splashed in some of the water.
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The kid loves to get wet!
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While Joel and David went on a ride at the Bay of Play, Silas, Katy and I headed over to see the sting rays. They were huge! We've touched the sting rays at the Aquarium of the pacific but these were so large! They were wider than Silas is tall.
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| Bat Ray |
We also headed into look at the eels. I did not enjoy that. Silas didn't really like it either. They were really creepy. No pictures of that.
We met back up with David and Joel and went to see the Sea Lion show. It was really clever and very entertaining. A little while later David and Joel talked about the sea lion show.
David: Those sea lions were pretty funny, huh, Joel?
Joel: Yeah but I didn't laugh.
David: Why didn't you laugh?
Joel: I was just thinking about it.
Silas was ready for a quick nap so Katy and I strolled around with him while David and I went to watch the pet show. David said it was pretty cool and Joel liked it. There were all kinds of animals...dogs, cats, chickens, pigs,birds, even kangaroos!
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G'day, mate!
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While Silas slept, we got in line to feed the dolphins. When it was our turn we walked over to meet the dolphin and I realized that maybe I shouldn't take my good camera over so close. Seconds later the dolphin confirmed my feelings by dousing me with a nice splash of water. I mean, seriously, these dolphins had it in for me! :)
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| Say hello to Dottie, our friendly dolphin |
Joel was very excited to feed the dolphins. The fish were tiny and slimy and pretty gross but it was fun to be so close to them.
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| Slimy fish |
Silas was a little more hesitant. David walked over with him. I know Silas never touched the fish but I'm not sure he even touched the dolphin. Oh well!
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| Look at the death grip Silas has on David. |
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| Hello! |
After we fed the dolphins, we had seen/done all of the "must do, must see" attractions. The next couple of hours were probably my favorite. We wandered through a couple of aquariums, including one with an octopus, ate a funnel cake and churros, saw the turtles and the flamingos and just kind of let the boys lead. David and Joel tried to ride the rapids ride but thank goodness (in my opinion) it was closed!
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The turtle looks how I felt about now....worn out!
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We decided to sneak into the last half of the second Shamu show and I was so thankful we did. The boys LOVED it! The sun was setting over the water so it just seemed especially magical. I think the boys were finally not afraid of the whales or of getting wet. Their bellies were full of sugar and we were all just much more relaxed.
Joel loved doing the Shamu splash. You put both hands in the air, lock your thumbs and bring your arms down to tell Shamu to splash the audience. This was Joel's version:
Oh yeah, and be sure to chant, "Shamu! Shamu!"
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| And he splashed! |
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| Silas' version of the Shamu splash |
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| Mama whale, baby whale |
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And this was Silas' expression through most of the show
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After the final show, we went on a search for souvenirs for the boys. Joel picked out a stuffed Shamu and Silas got his dolphin. It made me smile because I remember the first time I went to Sea World and I got a Shamu and my brother got a dolphin, almost identical to the ones the boys got. :) Katy and I also got some cute hats! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of us and our cute hats!
We had to stop by the Shamu bug on our way out!
And we tried to get one with the boys and Katy...
After Sea World we tried to go to a well-known bar-b-cue restaurant, Phil's, for dinner. Unfortunately, the line was out the door and around the building! Thankfully, Chick-Fil-A was just down the road so we stopped there. It ended up being a great way to end the great day!
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Joel insisted we take a picture with the cow.
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We got to the hotel, got checked in and the boys were anxious to hit the pool. The pool was heated but it was still c.o.l.d. So, we interrupted a little hot tub date and splashed around the hot tub for a few minutes before heading to bed. Katy had an early flight to catch and we were all pretty tired.
Sunday morning we got up and went to The Cottage for our favorite breakfast. So good! We went over to the beach to look at the seals laying out in the sand.
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David snapped this artsy shot of our outlines.
Then we headed up to Camp Pendleton to meet our college friend, Phil, and let the boys check out the helicopters. We didn't take any pictures, per military protocol, but the boys had a great time checking them all out. They even got a patch at the end of the day! We had a few more hours before we had to head back so we went to the base beach. It was really nice...not crowded, close parking, and a perfect day. The boys played in the sand and we flew the kite.
We finally decided to call it a day and headed back to LA. I know I've said this before but it really was such a fun weekend. Silas asks EVERY day if we can go to "Gee World" and see the whales or the starfish or the dolphins or the turtles or whatever other animal he thinks of in that moment. It makes me so thankful that we were able to go and also that we must go back. :) Thanks again, Katy! We love you!!!
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