SeaWorld Adventures...

Allright, so hubs has been bugging me to post a story about our Seaworld Adventures. A couple of weeks ago, we went to San Diego with my entire immediate family. Mom and dad, and my brother and his family of five, and our little threesome of Mc's.

We headed down on a Thursday and decided to spend Friday at SeaWorld. I haven't been to SeaWorld since I was about five, so I was pretty excited about going. We took all our diaper bag stuff and crammed it into our baby carrier/backpack...stuffed that in the bottom of the stroller and we were good to go for the day. Seaworld is awesome.

One of the first places we went to was the Polar Bear exhibit. Most of the exhibits and shows won't allow you to bring strollers which is exactly why we brought the backpack, and it worked out PERFECTLY. We could park the stroller, but still comfortably tote the boy and all our belongings with us. Hubs snapped this picture of us while watching the Polar Bears:We had a baseball type hat for Adam, but I thought he needed an actual sunhat with a brim all the way around. We couldn't find one that wasn't covered in ruffles or totally lame looking, but we DID find this lovely Nemo hat -our little man wasn't so keen on it:Right as we went into the shark exhibit, he decided to FALL ASLEEP. He missed the SHARKS people...does this say something about his timing or WHAT? And I have no idea how kids can sleep like this, it CAN'T be comfortable (don't worry, we laid him down in the stroller once we got outside the exhibit, he was making me walk crooked!):They had one of those tunnel things that you go through and all the creatures swim right over you...pretty damn cool:

We got to meet Bert and Ernie:
And we discovered that we have options when the boy is acting up:
KIDDING - this face? not a chance...
So at some point during the day, we decided we definately needed to see the dolphin show. We were cruising up to the stroller parking right as the show was starting, so we all grabbed our kids and our cameras and rushed in - sitting in the first couple of rows we saw....unfortunately, we were in such a hurry, we neglected to notice the big "SOAK ZONE" signs posted at the end of each row.

The dolphins were SO freaking cool...

and Adam was fascinated (he was sitting on Auntie Carie's lap)I'm just amazed by these guys:

"How'd they DO that?"

Now, these dolphins were splashing around...as you can imagine...and we were sitting pretty darn close...A little splashing, no big deal right?

Except then they brought out the ORCA...and she cruised around the rim and flapped her giant tail and completely soaked as many people as possible. This is what I caught of my parents (sitting one row BEHIND ME) right after being drenched

I'm not even sure if I can describe to you how it felt to get hit by that wave of water...but imagine someone taking a huge bucket of cold salt water and dumping it directly over your head. Carie had hightailed it for the top the minute a few drops hit her and Adam, and a few other family members followed. At some point, I was recovering from a particularly huge wave, and my niece Abby looked at me with big brown eyes and said "ummm, can we move?". I grabbed her hand and we bolted up those stairs leaving a massive trail of water behind us. We were both literally soaked from head to toe...as if we'd just gotten out of the shower...and I was wearing JEANS! We settled in at the top and enjoyed the rest of the show while trying to squeeze water out of our clothes...and then I realized that our digital camera was in my hand the entire time. Let's just say, digital cameras and salt water? not a good combo. (Thank goodness for best buy and their warranties!) SO thus ends my picture taking for the entire vacation.

I do have a story though about our SECOND trip to Seaworld - and you're just going to have to visualize it all for yourself. So on Sunday, we decided to head back to seaworld and hit all the stuff we missed on the first trip. The kids especially wanted to go to the roaring rapids ride. Now you would think...after the dolphin show experience, that I would stay off rides titled ROARING RAPIDS. But for some reason, either my blond hair kicked in at that moment - or I just like to live dangerously, because I was stoked about hitting that ride. Hubs was smart and bought a poncho - but they were $8 and we didn't want to spend that much on another poncho that we'd probably never use, so we decided to share and just cover ourselves. We were standing in line and watching people walk towards the exit, and some people looked wet, but others looked completely dry and after unfolding the poncho and seeing that it wasn't really big enough for both of us - I told hubs "you know what honey - it's okay...I'll be fine..I don't mind getting a little wet". (again, wearing my dried out JEANS on this day - big mistake). So we climb into the ride - hubs and Carie wearing black and white shamu ponchos - my older neices on one side - and my brother and I poncholess sitting next to each other on the other side. We start the ride and all is well, we go down some little dips and get splashed a bit - but no big deal...then we get to this open area where we see my mom standing with the strollers waving - and we notice an observation deck where people can put quarters in these machines and people can aim water at you. Then we hear "HEY GUYS!" and lo and behold, my DAD was on one of the machines and nailing the crap out of us....Aaron and I are yelling "HEY, HEY! KNOCK IT OFF!" because of course we're getting soaked. The girls were laughing and hubs and carie were holding their ponchos and chuckling at how wet we were getting. We move past my dad, and farther along the ride and aaron and I are grumbling about how wet we are, when I look up ahead and notice a freaking WATERFALL that we have to go UNDER. I looked at Aaron and said "CRAP!!!!" and pointed...and aaron looks up and goes "Oh COME OOOOOOONNNNN!!!!"

and then we got completely drenched.

I miserably crawled off that ride and took the walk of shame towards the exit while people in line were whispering "ohmygod did you SEE that girl? she was soaked!"...most of the rides dump you off at a gift shop of some sort, and the one we went through had clothes of course (smart) - and I HAD to get out of those heavy, wet jeans....so hubs and I found a pair of sweatpant capri's with a seaworld logo on them, and I headed to the dressing room to change. I had to call hubs to hold the curtain closed for me - and I stepped out of my jeans. It was then that I realized I was soaking wet - I didn't want to put on these new pants and get them soaked too...so I told hubs "dude, my ASS is wet! I don't want to put these pants on now!" and he stepped inside the dressing room...crouched down and goes "use my t-shirt!"

Let's just say - I proceeded to rub my butt on hubby's shirt...in a corner dressing room of a crappy gift shop at sea world...I was cracking up and trying not to pee myself from laughing the entire time - and hubby was holding onto the curtain for dear life going "I should have bought a pooooonchooooo!" Oh man - it was so damn funny, I don't even know if I can properly explain the hilarity of that situation. We walked out of there snickering up about the fact that we didn't want to spend $8 on a damn poncho, but ended up spending $26 on a new pair of pants for me. Lesson LEARNED!

All in all, a fun vacation - mom and dad rented a beach house which was super cute and literally right on the beach. Adam did FABULOUS at seaworld both times and we've learned that he really does travel pretty well...he's good at being on the go and away from his normal routine. I'm bummed that I didn't get any more pictures - but we did get a new camera, WOOOO!