Sea World

Believe it or not, but this was Gracelyn's fourth trip to Sea World. And even Addie has been there twice. Yep, we love it! This was actually the first time we got to meet Shamu out of the water. Gracelyn was very excited to stop and say hello to him.
Our first stop in the park is always Shamu's tank. We always have fun watching the whales up close and personal. We happened to catch two whales who were very lively that morning. They were both swimming around doing lots of fun things like flips and blowing big bubbles. The girls just loved watching them.As always, we had a great time watching all the shows. The new dolphin show was really fun, and Gracelyn was especially pleased with it because it included a "princess" trainer all dressed in pink. She was certain that it must have been Aurora and she said to me several times during the show, "Wow Mom, I didn't know that Aurora knew how to swim with dolphins!"

But one of the highlights of the day was visiting the game area. This was the first time we have stopped there to play some of the fun carnival games like ring toss etc. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or the dads...but needless to say ALL the families walked away with at least one Giant Shamu or Dolphin :) You could just see the pride radiating from the men as their kids rejoiced over their new giant prizes...and I'm sure if you looked carefully, you would have also seen the looks on all the moms faces that said..."Do we really have to take these giant things home and keep them?" :) But our giant pink Shamu did make the trip home with us and the girls have played with it every day since. They really do love it!It was fun to see and do a few new things this trip. For those of you who don't know, Sea World is having some great deals right now, like a child's ticket for $5, and all day dining deal for $30 and you can return anytime for free before the end of the year. It made our trip much more affordable this time around. So yes, we are already planning our return trip for October!