June 15--We surprised Lauren by taking her to Sea World! Paul and I both had rose colored glasses from trips when we were younger and wanted to see how it compared!
We started at the Dolphin Nursery with the mamas and babies.
Then on to the Shamu stadium!
I have to say that the underwater observation tanks were AWESOME!! Mama and a baby!!
Shark encounter!
Antarctica!! It was WONDERFUL!! Oh, and COLD!!! The ride says, "Please make sure that you are completely dry before entering this ride." Well, when there is a DOWNPOUR, you really cannot be DRY!!
The Dolphin Cove show was pretty cool too. It started out as a "princess" not being confident in herself. Then there were a LOT of birds (human and non), performers, people diving into the water, taking ropes back up and doing it again! It was incredible!
Yes, that is one of the performers being scooted through the water by a dolphin!
And riding a pair of dolphins!
Again, the observation pools were tremendous!
Someone opened an umbrellas and was twirling it around. The dolphins were SO excited with the play!
The Clyde and Seymore show was cancelled 2 times due to lightening. We were delayed for the dolphin show, too. During one of the downpours, Paul demanded we find the divers so Lauren could get a pearl. Sadly, with the weather, the divers weren't diving. BUT, Lauren STILL was able to pick out an oyster.
A ceremony was performed...
And Lauren ended up with a pink pearl! Lauren (the Sea World staff person) helped clean it up for Lauren (our baby girl) and put it in a pretty pink shell for safe keeping!
We moved on to visit the sea lions.
Lauren and Paul thought it was hysterical that one sea lion decided to use another's behind as a pillow.
Paul wanted to ride the log drop. I didn't want to. Lauren said YES! She dragged Paul to the ride, excited to go!
Lauren HAD to sit in the very front row with Paul.
Turns out Lauren did NOT enjoy the ride as much as she anticipated!
This is Lauren and Paul going down. It just got out of order. Notice the foggy picture? Yeah, it was THAT humid out!
That was just super cool!
We saw some rescued animals (manatees, cat fish, gars) in another part of the park as we were exiting.
At the end of the day, we FINALLY got a family picture!
Lauren took one of just Daddy and Mommy!
