Sea World is Magical!

About to leave....success!

Isabel meets Zoe!

Watching Sesame Street show.


Watching the sea lion show.

Enormous walrus.

Jumping and playing at the 'Bay of Play'

Shamu and her baby!

Opening the show.

Logan is mesmerized.

And they're off!

Sea World 09.25.11

I woke up this morning and had coffee and the Sunday paper in bed (thanks Brian and Isabel) and saw on the back of one of the sections a little blurb about Sea World. It said that if you buy a ticket this year you'll be able to go until 1/6/2013 for FREE! Since children under 3 are free I was pretty excited about this deal. It was still $60/ticket for me and Brian, but still, we can go for over a year for FREE! Parking was $15 though. Stupid.

Anyway, it was AWESOME! Both Logan and Izzy were pretty good on the drive up (a slight miracle for Logan) and even though we got there right at Logan's nap time, it was great! We headed over to the Shamu show first. After some snacks we went to the 'splash zone' section and waited 15 years for the show to start. It was really only 20 minutes, but it seamed like forever. Brian walked Logan around outside while Isabel and I watched the whales swim around. The show finally started with a giant Shamu flip right in front of us. It totally startled Logan, who jumped, but he didn't cry and was seriously mesmerized the entire time. His eyes were as big as saucers. He clapped and danced and had a great time. Isabel was pretty impressed with the show too. I was fully expecting to have to take Logan outside and walk with him, but he surprised us and loved the show. As I was watching Isabel and Logan enjoying the show so much I thought about how much Viv would have loved seeing the whales. After getting teary-eyed I told myself to buck up for the kids and put on a happy face. After leaving the show I saw a huge dragonfly and was reminded that Viv is always with us.

After Shamu we ate some seriously crappy food for lunch. I have no words for how bad it was. At least they had these nut/egg/milk-free cookies that were pretty good.

After lunch we headed over to the Sesame Street 'Bay of Play' area. Isabel got to meet and hug Elmo and Abby. She loved it, but I think she was a little overwhelmed as she was rendered speechless after giving them a huge 'HI ELMO!' She didn't say another word for a while. I kept Logan in the stroller because I knew he would be a little freaked out. Sure enough, Abby came over to try and say hi to him and he shut his eyes and put his balled fists over them trying to make them go away. I really wanted to tell Abby to leave, but didn't. When he opened his eyes and saw her still standing over him he totally freaked out. Luckily she left and I was able to calm him down relatively easily (for him).

There was a giant climbing structure thing that was a little too big for Izzy to play with, a playground, some under 3 stuff that we didn't see until we were leaving, and a big water/splash area. Isabel and Brian had fun getting wet and cooling off in the splash area. After that we headed over to see the sea lion show. Once again Logan and Isabel did fantastic and really seemed to enjoy the show. After seeing the baby sea lion pups we changed everyone and made the dicey decision to stay for the 3pm Sesame Street character show, since I knew everyone was getting super tired and it was one hundred and freaking four degrees. No joke. 104 degrees on September 25th.

The character show was short and sweet. Perfect. There were some songs and dancing and that was about it. Isabel worked up the courage to go to the stage and dance and the show ended. It was ok though, because she got to meet Cookie Monster and Zoe.

We packed up and headed back to Austin. Logan freaked the eff out in the car on the way home. Jesus that kid can scream. We stopped to get gas and Brian got in the back with him to try and calm him down. I guess no naps and lots of stimulation finally caught up with Logan. After dinner, bath, and 1/3 of 'Cars' Brian took Logan to bed and he said Logan actually clapped when he put him in the crib. Sweet boy.

I seriously would have laughed out loud if you told me that I would have gone to San Antonio today to Sea World and had a great time without any meltdowns. Amazing!

Oh yeah, and active military personnel and their families get in free. How cool is that?! They had active and retired military peeps stand and be recognized at the Shamu show. High five Sea World!