Our World Meets Sea World

It's Sea World (San Antonio, our next stop on the trip). Pure magic for little boys, and lots of fun for parents and grandparents, too. What more to say? I would be remiss if I did not mention the all-day dining pass, which my father so kindly gifted us. So not only could we go on rides, watch shows, and see animals, we could eat the entire time. Which we did, of course. Aaah, the sweet life . . . of course I didn't take pictures of every single thing, but this seems like quite a bit . . .

Noah's favorite ride, Shamu's roller coaster adventure thing. Here you can only see Gary and my mom.

Play where's Gary and Josh and Em on the carousel . . . 

Should be much easier finding Grandpa and Andrew here. Grandpa was great to take Andrew on this several times during the day.

This one tied for cutest shot of Andrew on the horse.

The whole crew after the sea lion show.

Noah feeding fish to the sea lions. He loved this, as did Andrew. Andrew was laughing in delight at whatever the sea lions did. I did not see this moment in real life, because unfortunately, I was looking for Josh. He had a little being lost scare that involved the security, and was a little better at sticking with us after that.

A wide shot of the Journey to Atlantis ride Gary and I went on with Josh and Noah. I thought it would be too scary for Noah, but he really wanted to do it. It was too scary. Josh, on the other hand, did a little end zone dance when he got off and kept saying, "That was sooo awesome!"

You can find us in this one  . . . 

This was probably the coolest show. It is called Azul because it features beluga whales and white something dolphins. We love the song Baby Beluga, so it was fun to see one. There were all kinds of acrobatics by people and animals, including parrots flying across the stage in formation. I wasn't going to take pictures, but Josh said, "Mom, you've got to take a picture of this!" 

Taking pictures of people absorbed in the show . . .

Lissy liked this show, she kept following the birds from side to side. By the way, it was really hot and humid. I wanted to be wearing this dress so badly.

The dancing dolphins was a definite favorite.

We also saw the water-ski show and Shamu's show, and enjoyed all of them. We went to Shamu's show near the end of the day. Andrew was laughing and pointing excitedly one second, and the next he was sound asleep. No slowing down for the transition to sleep at all. It was hilarious. As tired as these kids were from travelling, their tiredness was no match for their excitement to be at Sea World.

The crocodile-viewing brigade.

One of the crocodiles they viewed . . . actually, I think it's an alligator.

Grandma is protecting Josh from the alligators.

Sesame street characters are a definite bonus for toddlers at Sea World.

Andrew was completely engrossed in what he was watching . . .

 . . . it was bottlenose dolphins . . .

. . . and Noah loved them, too.

This shark looks like it's swimming right at Josh.

The sharks were a definite favorite for the kids.

I was very proud of Andrew for getting to the top of this net. The other kids were off riding things that Andrew is too short for, so I watched him play for a bit.

Andrew LOVED going on "Abby-dabby's ride." Noah liked it, too. By the time I went a couple of times, I was feeling dizzy, but he wanted to go again. With dad. It's so cute watching Andrew be excited.

And we ended the day with the Rio Loco. Well, then we ate tons at the smokehouse, then we went on a few last rides, and left at closing. But anyway, Josh and Noah loved this ride, so much so that they wanted to go again right away. Lucky for us, the line was almost gone when we went back, so we did it again with my dad. He kept saying, "This is one loco rio!" It sure was. After my two encounters with it I was so soaked people started at me everywhere I went. At least I was no longer hot!