Splash, splash, penguin

We finally took a day away from unpacking/organizing/working last Saturday and went to SeaWorld! Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures to post at this time because we were too busy having fun to cheese for the camera. However, we did get season's passes, so look here later for wet, watery fun.

I called this post "splash, splash, penguin" because it's the quick summary of our day. Sam, Daniel and Anna were quite content to spend the majority of the day in the water park. We started out in the toddlers area, where there's a max 8 inches deep of water. There's fountains of water to walk through, small slides to go down, and best of all--shady areas to be in the water. Anna and I mostly stayed in that area while John supervised the boys--and by supervised I mean played like a boy himself. We ate lunch at SeaWorld--we normally don't have lunch inside the parks, but if you leave the water park area on a Saturday, we're told it's a good chance that you won't get back in! That's when we saw Shamu. That's right, we went to SeaWorld and the only Shamu we saw danced and sang on-stage. Sam was talking yesterday about the singing fishes and I finally figured out it was this lunchtime stage show! After lunch we took turns taking the boys down the lazy river. By the 8th time or so, Sam just wanted to bob along in his life jacket as long as we stayed close. I thought Daniel was going to be lulled to sleep as we floated along, but we kept going through spray areas which woke him up.

Anna wasn't allowed to go on the lazy river, but it worked out for one of us to be out with her and the other to be in with one or both boys. When we started getting some weather--thunder, lightning--we were already changed back into dry clothes to do the one non-water thing that the boys had been asking for--see the penguins. The water park, the rides, and the shows were temporarily closed down for the weather, and it was funny to be going the wrong way against the throng of people who were leaving SeaWorld. When you think about many of them buying their ticket for just one day, we were surprised by how many left the park just because of some sprinkles.

I must say we were not terribly impressed by the penguin exhibit. You ride past the penguins on a people mover, so you don't get to just stand and look. Luckily, there's an area that's set back up above where you can take your stroller, and we stopped there. We were also disappointed that the lights were so dim in the exhibit. We couldn't even really see the back wall where it looked like most of them were grouped. Lesson learned: go to SeaWorld for the lazy river, not the penguins.

We live 10 minutes away from SeaWorld, so we'll be going back often. Mom and I are taking the kids Thursday. I figure that if we only see three things each time we'll go, we'll still see it all by the time we leave San Antonio.