Sea World!

On Saturday, we packed up our stuff in the condo, and moved it over to a hotel by Sea World. The kids were excited about getting to see all of the animals!
We started out at the stingray exhibit. They got to touch and feed them:

Then we were off to watch Blue Horizon, the dolphin show.

This show not only had dolphins doing cool tricks, but it also had acrobatics, and parrots flying around. It was very good.

I loved when the dolphins did this. I thought it was so funny. =)

After we watched the dolphins, we walked clear across the park to watch the whales. The kids kept calling them Shamu Whales.

This show was called One Ocean. The boys wanted to sit in the "Splash Zone". I did not. So, we compromised and sat in the middle of the splash zone, so if we got wet, we wouldn't get too wet.

I loved watching the whales.

And we didn't get wet at all!! (Much to the dismay of my boys.....)

After the whales, we went to see the shark experience exhibit. These are the only picture I took there:

The next exhibit was where you could see and touch different animals. The 2 animals that you could touch at this time were a parrot:

and a wallaby:

The kids loved touching the animals and seeing them up close!

The seal show was next!

This show was SO funny! The seals were cracking us up! I think this was Lily's favorite show.

The big finish was a giant walrus!

And that was it for the first day. By 3:00, the kids were done, and so was poor Jeff's knee. We headed back to the hotel for some much needed relaxing pool time. (and pool side margaritas for Jeff & I.)

The next morning, we were all relaxed and refreshed and ready for a new day!

The day before, we had spent all of our time at the shows, so this day, we rode some rides!

The first ride we went to was Manta, which is a roller coaster. You had to be 54 inches though & Riley is not 54 inches. :0( Zach is over 54 inches though, so he could ride this with Jeff. He was so excited!

After that we decided to go on something everyone could go on; Journey To Atlantis:

I could go on this, but do you see that drop?!? I do not do rides like this. I know, I'm a weeny....and I'm ok with that. :0)

I wasn't too sure Lily would like this ride, but she really wanted to go on it.

She did not like this ride........

Someone is missing their happy smile....

Lily said this was the worst part of Sea World. ;0)

After that ride, we went to the other big roller coaster, Kraken. Again, Riley could not ride this one.

So, he sat in the seat that was sitting outside the ride and acted like he was on it. :0)

After the rides, the kids were ready for a cool down, so we went back to the whale show and sat in the 3rd row of the splash zone. The boys had been really disappointed that they were not splashed the day before. Well, they got splashed this day!

After the first dousing of salt water, I took the backpack, and walked up into the safe zone. That was enough water for me!

The boys were SUPER wet! (So were Jeff & Lily) They were surprised at just how wet they got.

We walked around and let the kids dry off before going to Wild Arctic! You can choose to go on a walking exhibition or helicopter ride that are both virtual reality. We chose the helicopter ride. It was really interesting and you got to see the arctic up close this through the scene they show. After the ride, you can look through their exhibits. The first one was Beluga whales.

We also saw walruses. There was an exhibit for polar bears, but they must have been hiding, because we didn't see them.

Zach did see this one in the gift shop though.....

Silly boy!

We finally made it around to the kiddie rides where they had rides Lily actually could ride on and liked.

Apparently Zach was too cool to ride the carousel. ;0)

They also cooled off in the water part in the kiddie section.

When Riley saw these, he just had to have his picture taken in front of them:

And then they saw these:

I think they are now trained to spot places where their picture can be taken after years of me making them do it. ;0)

We had done pretty much everything we came to see and do, so we asked them what they wanted to see again, and they wanted to watch the dolphin show again, so we headed over there.

This was Riley's favorite show.

The last thing we did was feed these cute guys!

Feeding the dolphins was my (and probably the kids and Jeff's) favorite part of Sea World. You got to get SO close to them! And they were so friendly. They came right up to you and made little noises at you.

We all got a lot of fish to feed them and the dolphins kept coming back for more!

After that we walked around for a little, ate dinner, picked out souvenirs, and went back to the hotel. The next day, we headed back home to Wichita. The kids didn't want to come back, but Jeff & I were ready. It's nice to get away and have fun and have real quality time with each other. But, it's also nice to be home and not on the go all day everyday. :0)