Sea World

Wednesday was Sea World, but we had a heck of a time finding it as Texas road signs suck. We passed the offramp a couple times before finally locating the biggest theme park in San Antonio—I still can’t understand why they didn’t have better directions. But find it we did, and got our free tickets and went first to the Shamu show, which was fun. We sat in the soak zone and got wet, but I (bravely? foolishly?) filmed it anyway. Anya especially enjoyed it (the show, NOT the soak zone!).

This is Anya's depiction of the show. You will see the Shamu family at the bottom, a family sitting below us (Esther, Princess, Isaac, and their dad -- all fictitious) and our family (labeled at the top). If you look closely, you'll notice the blobs of water all over us. Next, note the expressions on our faces. All of us but Anya are laughing -- she is sad. And she told me Ian is laughing at her because she is wet and unhappy. She did truly like the Shamus, though.


Then we wandered the park and ended up seeing a sea lion show with a sea otter as a villain (Erin and I rolled our eyes, but the kids really liked it, especially Ian, who was laughing throughout) and afterward Anya got to feed the sea lions.

We saw the penguins half a dozen times, since it was a short moving sidewalk and I wanted pictures and film of Ian watching them.

We fed the dolphins (well, everyone but me), which was a highlight, since they got to pet the dolphins before tossing them a fish. Erin helped the kids pet and feed a number of times, and I caught it on camera.

We persuaded Anya to ride the Shamu Express in the kiddie play area, which we all did, but it was a jerky ride that no one enjoyed and unfortunately it put Anya off from other rides. Shortly before that I had purchased frozen lemonade for Erin and me, and fudge for everyone, which we shared. Ian seemed to really like it, but just as we strapped into the Shamu Express I looked over and Ian was drooling fudge down his shirt and had it all over his fingers. I tried to clean him up, but it was a hopeless mess.

Then we visited the Coral Reef, where they have enormous two-story fish tanks like the PPG aquarium in Pittsburgh. The kids liked that as well. Toward the end of the day we caught a show employing acrobats, whales, and birds, which was kinda cool (Anya enjoyed it—Ian was lethargic by that point).

We got each of the kids a souvenir: a T-shirt for Ian, and Anya picked out a dolphin trainer Barbie she named Sparkly. On the drive home she was talking in voices to the Barbie and dolphins still in the package, and as soon as we got back to the hotel she was excited to open it up. She also pulled out the Barbie she had brought from home, named Shallow, and was explaining that because there was only one swim suit one of them would have to be naked. We overheard her say that this would have to be Shallow, because “she’s easy.” What she meant was that Shallow was easier to dress and undress, but even so Erin lost it. On the way home we ate at Fridays.