Summertime Fun

Because of the wonderful people at the RMH, I got some tickets to Sea World. So I invited the extended family out for a trip to see the whales, dolphins, and sting rays. Oh, and penguins. And the rides.

Last Saturday, Diana and Goestov, Kevin, DJ, C., and S., and Darin and I went to explore Sea World. Yeah! Though we've been there many times, I can't say I've been there during the hot summer with a bunch of tourists. But, hey, what can you do?

We got there (with everyone else) just in time to see the first showing of the dolphin show thing. I don't remember what it was called, sorry. It had dolphins and people, with stranger people doing acrobats and such. Dressed up as birds. Hmm.

Waiting for the show to start!
Gus, Diana, S., DJ, and C.
We look semi-cool.

Darin and Kevin

Darin and Del

The dolphins! Can you see them?

I always get very excited whenever I see animals. I don't know why, but they just make me happy. And gitty with excitement. And I clap along with everyone else (and make Darin clap too). I guess it's just the beauty of it all.

After the show, we were all hungry so we went out to the car to eat lunch. We were planners! It turned out to be semi-hot, but easy to do and the food was good! We headed back inside to get to the roller coasters!

We hit Mantra (the new coaster) first after getting some snazzy fast-pass-type wrist bands (so worth the money...) and then followed C.'s advise and tried the water ride.

And we got w.e.t.

And it was wonderful!

Ended up going two times. Ha ha. I had Darin go in the front with me and we totally got submerged in water. Afterward, we went to see the other smaller aspects of the park (like the cute penguins and other fun sea life you can pet/watch/smell).

At penguin place, under water obviously.

And then for some crazy reason we decided it would be fun to go to the kids area and act like kids. We climbed up this giant net thing (see picture below) without realizing that there was no way down without going through the tubes.

Diana's in the hat, Kevin's in red, C. has the blue hat on....

S. through the tunnels.

It was pretty funny watching the six adults crawl or crab walk through those tunnels. Kids would just be hanging out in them... so not made for adults. But it was fun.

Silly S.

After more rides (the scary Kracken), we finally got to the good park - the killer whales. Or orcas. Or whatever. I love them. I'm always amazing by what the can do.

Group again - don't we look hotter?



Whales!



Watch out behind you!

And then there was Shamu. I read a lot about the various Shamu's in history (because I asked the question to Darin about whether this was the original Shamu) and it really is quite interesting. They have a fun Shamu clap that the crowd does.

Big Shamu. Needs to eat less fish.

Great show. Next time we'll sit in the splash zone and get wet. Nobody including myself really wanted to get wet again because we were for the most part dry!

And we did lots of other stuff too, I just didn't take pictures. Saw the walrus show, missed out on the bird show. Ate some popcorn, drank some beer (though not free), and went on Mantra again.

It was a great day and we were all exhausted by the time we went home.

Exhaustion = Happy Summertime Fun