Our Life Back in Texas!: Sea World

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Sea World

Last week, we had a super fun mini-vacation with my sister Katherine and her family. We met them in San Antonio for a fun time on the Riverwalk and then an action filled day at Sea World!

I have to say that San Antonio is a really fun city, even as a native Texan tourist! So many different things to do than the other big cities in Texas. Last Sunday, we drove to San Antonio and met Katherine's family at the Riverwalk downtown for dinner at one of the mexican food restaurants. The food was lukewarm unfortunately but it was fun just kicking off the trip with a nice meal together full of great conversation and lots of cute cousin moments between the kids. Joseph just adores his cousins - especially Luke (or Uke as he calls him). But they are all so sweet with both him and Andrew.

Joseph and Michael on the Riverwalk

At dinner Sunday night

Kat and I tried hard to get a picture together but after three efforts and a lot of blur and little photobombers (ha!), this was the best we got! :)

My boys in front of the mall area at the Riverwalk

After dinner we stopped at a little ice cream parlor for a little treat on the way to the Alamo. Andrew had his first ice cream and he is quite a fan!

After dinner we walked across the street to the Alamo and took some pictures outside. Trying to keep my two boys off the roped off grass was a chore! We stayed at an Embassy Suites which worked out perfect with the two bedroom suites, great breakfast each morning and then an indoor pool which we took advantage of the last night!

At the Alamo!

Our fam

Sweet boys at the Alamo (and super offcentered)

Jim, Katherine, Jacob, Luke and Sarah

Cousin picture at the Alamo

Joseph and Michael went walking around the Alamo and took this picture. (unfortunately Joseph is not a very good picture taker, we're still working on that! ;))

Monday morning after we breakfast we loaded up the cars and headed out for our day at Sea World. I was expecting it to be super crowded because of spring break, but to our delight there really weren't all that many people there! The forecast wasn't the best and the next day looked beautiful so we are thinking a lot of people came the next day. Anyways, we got to the park and were greeted by Shamu himself!

Kid picture (minus Andrew who was content in the double stroller)

Joseph and Andrew with Shamu - love this picture!

After entering the park and potty breaks for all, we headed to the dolphin exhibit. Love those pretty animals! Then we headed to our first show. I forget the name of it but it's a little detective show that uses all different types of sea animals (sea lion, otter, seal, etc). It really was so good and very entertaining! It was funny all the little tricks they had the animals do! I was curious how both the boys would do sitting through the shows, but they both were so attentive and really watched it the whole time!

Following the show we went to the Sea Lion exhibit and then rode the carousel in the ride section of the park.

At the dolphin exhibit

A great jump right in front of us

At the first show

Andrew in front of the sea lion exhibit

Fun on the carousel

Joseph riding the carousel with Michael

We then grabbed some lunch and then went and got our seats for the One World show - that is the big one with the killer whales (Shamu and baby Shamu too!)! It was such a beautiful production with the music and all! It's amazing the way they can train such large animals to do these tricks. We were on the last row of the splash zone and luckily we avoided getting drenched by just a few rows. They train the whales to swim over and put their tale towards the audience and they splash over and over - and we are talking crazy amounts of water that go flying into the crowd! And at the finale of the show Shamu and baby Shamu did a jump together and it was so cute!

Waiting for the show to start

Shamu!

Shamu and her baby at the show's finale!

Shamu says cheese!

After the Shamu show, we had some pretty good rain at the park. Luckily we had umbrellas, ponchos and raincoats so we were somewhat dry. So we got a snack and then headed towards the Azul show. I have to say this may have been my favorite show. It was a little longer than the others too. They had beluga whales and dolphins that did tricks and the trainers were swimming around in the water and being pushed through the water by them - so neat! Then there were all kinds of synchronized swimmers and divers doing tricks into the water. There was so much going on all the time and it was just great!

We're all enjoying the show

Then we went by the Alligator pit on our way to the Shark/Coral Reef exhibit on our way out. Unfortunately my pictures started slowing down a bit in between shows because of all the rain. After that, we finished up our visit to Sea World by taking the kids to the gift shop to pick out their souvenirs. Joseph had been asking for a stuffed Shamu ever since he spotted it in the gift shop that morning, so he was SO excited to finally get one. He is still so attached to his Shamu and is hugging him under his arm every time he goes to sleep. It's really fun now that he can have memories of places and can communicate it! Even yesterday in the car he was looking at a book that has a picture of a dolphin and he said "Mommy! Sea World!". :)

We stopped for pizza on our way back to the hotel for a late night swim and then headed to bed. We had some very tired kiddos! In fact, both of mine fell asleep in the car at 6pm when we left Sea World on our way to dinner! We headed out the next morning after breakfast and said goodbye to Kat's sweet family. We had so much fun together and are so blessed to have been able to spend that time together! Jacob, Luke and Sarah are just so fun and sweet and the kids all had fun together - whether it was when we were out and about, running back and forth between our adjacent hotel rooms, or racing each other to the elevator. What a fun little trip and great memories!