Shamu with Friends

I'm up to my elbows in birthday preparations for somebody's party on Saturday, but I wanted to take a break from all that and post a couple photos from a trip to Sea World we took with some friends last week.

Actually, that might be a bit of a stretch... I DO want to share the pictures, but I'm mostly already done prepping for the party and now I am too tired to move off the couch.  I still need to make a couple more goody bags, and a sign for the front door, but other than that, all the stuff I can do ahead of time is basically done.  Matt made and froze the pizzas earlier in the week and I stayed up past midnight working on the cake last night.  Of course I still need to clean up around here again (read: hide all the junk I don't want our friends to see) and grocery shop/prep the rest of the food.  There are water balloons to fill and decorations to be hung, but basically all of that needs to wait until the night before/day of.  So I figured I should seize this "free time" to catch up on blogging a bit.

But first, can I just say I am absolutely wiped out from staying up last night to do the cake.

Why do I put myself through the stress of making their birthday cakes every year?

Yesterday when I told Peter I was going to get started making it, he asked me where his Dad was.  I told him Matt was at work and then my son asked if his Dad was going to stop on the way home and pick him up a cake at the cake shop.  I told him again, that no, I was going to make it like I always do and then... THEN, my dear sweet adorable first born child acted shocked and reminded me that I "never make anything."

Grrrr.

To make matters worse the kids were up later than usual last night finishing a movie on TV so I got a late start with the icing and by the time I was done for the evening it was already midnight.

And now, from all the standing my feet hurt and are all puffy.

Okay.  But enough with the complaining.  It IS worth it.  When I showed the kids the cake this morning Peter said it looked "Umi-rrefic!"  and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  That might not sound like a compliment, but the cake/party are Team Umi Zoomi themed and that's something they say on the show.

Anyway, Sea World.

Last week we went down with our good friends from school for just the morning.  That was just enough fun for us, and honestly, it was so hot I couldn't have lasted much longer.

We started out at the tide pool to visit with the sea stars.  I think we probably could have stayed there all day and the kids would have been just fine with that.

P and his good friend.  

After the tide pool and an aquarium we visited the sting rays.

Obligatory picture of me to prove I was there.

After the rayas we went over to the dolphins.  We were just in time for an interaction and Peter got to touch.  A.J. wasn't into it though.  She mostly just wanted to hang out with my friend and talk about how her boys are her boyfriend.  A.J. is into her big brothers friends already?  Lord help me!

This is a picture of the picture one of the park photographers
got of Peter petting the dolphin's tail flukes.

Once we were done with the dolphins we went to see the Sea Lions and the sharks before basically calling it quits with animals for the day.  Peter in particular, but all the kids too, were getting fidgety and needed to run around.  

My friend caught this one of my kids looking at the Sea Lions.
It is so sweet that they're holding hands.  This might be my new favorite photo ever.

 Then it was time to PLAY!

The boys all bravely climbed up and disappeared into the maze of nets and things above our heads and A.J. went to jump.  I kept and eye on the girl and tried to not worry about the boys getting lost.  My friend's oldest is 5, so I figured he would be able to remember where we'd told them to meet us, but it was still stressful to have him out of sight.

Meanwhile, A.J. jumped and ran around in circles.

And happily, after a little while, Peter had enough of climbing and came down to join his sister.  :)

So that was fun.  But it was getting a bit late, for us.  We decided to hit up the Shamu show before we left, since her boys kept asking to see the whales.  Unfortunately, A.J. wasn't into it.  She climbed under our seats into the shade and spent the wait time before hand and part of the show "sleeping" under there.  Lovely right?

But the boys enjoyed it.

Gosh, am I the only one noticing how many more A.J. pictures are in this post than of Peter.  It was weird actually.  With his friends there, I barely focused on my boy.  I focused on keeping A.J. happy and he interacted with his friends.  This is such a switch from normal, where Matt usually has A.J. and I have him.
It's like suddenly he's all big and a bit like, "Mom, don't bother me in front of my friends!" or something.

They just grow up so fast don't they?

Peter wanted to get wet so I took him down the steps during the splash time and together we got just wet enough to make him happy.  (If you're wondering, A.J. stayed up at the top of the Soak Zone with our friends and continued to pout.)

It was a fun morning.

Anyway, I never get tired of Sea World, and apparently, neither do my kids.  :)

Mother's Day Part 2 (Cooling Off at Sea World)

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, we sort of spur of the moment-decided to spend Mother's Day at Sea World.  

I know what you're all thinking.  You're like "OMG girl, not another post about Sea World!  How many pictures of your kids and the same dozen animals do we need to see?" 

A lot alright?

So suck it.

Here are some of the highlights from our day:

Both kids said hello to Shakira the legless lizard again.  Mommy kept back a safe distance, even if it is technically a lizard not a snake, she's has no need to get any closer.

The kids also said hello to the miniature horse again.

Peter and I said hello to "Pete" the penguin.  A.J. didn't want anything to do with him and Peter failed to see that his and the penguin's names had anything in common.  

Both kids checked out the random sea stars and things in the touch tank.

They said hello to the Llama, who might be very well be stuffed.  I swear it was in the exact same place and position the last time we visited it in December.

We went through the barn with the porcupine and the armadillo and beavers and things.  The big lizard (Kimodo Dragon maybe?) was very interested in my kids.  

Like he looked hungry.... 

A.J. decided she was mostly too big to ride in the stroller.
She looked so stinking cute holding Matt's finger and walking along  all day I just
couldn't even stand it.

We went over to one of aquariums we'd never visited before.

It mostly has sting rays in there.

And apparently some sharks.

Then we went through the Arctic.

The walrus was putting on quite a show.

The belugas are always fun too.

We'd planned to skip most of the shows that day since the stadiums tend to be the hottest places in the park, but Peter really wanted to see the Pets show.  He really likes it I guess, and it's always fun to look for our friend Olivia too.  While we waited for it to begin, we entertained ourselves with the camera and some snacks.

Next came lunch.  While Matt went to pick up some food, I sat with the kids who waited in the stroller.  

And while the waited, they practiced beating each other up.

After we ate, we went to see the sting rays.  The seal and sea lion pools were closed that day, so we got some fish and let the kids feed the rays instead.

Then we went underwater to view the exhibit from the flip side.  We hadn't been down there since it was redone and let me be the first to tell you that it is MUCH nicer now.   No eels though.  At least not on the side we were on.  I wonder what happened to them actually?

Peter thought the Shovelnose Guitarfish were cool.

We visited a couple of aquariums as we crossed the park and then went to the tide pool to visit the sea stars some more.  Peter loves it there so much and never wanted to leave.  A.J. still mostly just splashed her little hands in the cold water.

The kids were very interested in the flamingos.  A lot of them were nesting....

Finally, we went to see the dolphins and then the killer whales.  Peter is never happy at the dolphins unless he gets to feed out (like at camp) and pet them, so we didn't last long there, but it was fun to see the newest Baby Shamu over at the underwater whale viewing.  

Finally, we hit up a gift shop.  A.J. lost her stuffed Shamu the last time we were up at Disney so we owed her a new one and Peter wanted some more of his little toy rubber animals.  

It was only about 4 o'clock, but we'd had enough.  A.J. was tired and asking for her blanket (she'd even been telling fish in the aquarium that it was time to go to bed) and I was getting to the point were walking was rapidly turning into waddling, so we headed out.

It was a good day.

Days at Sea World usually are.

Friday after Camp... more fun at Sea World

After our morning at Camp was over, Jamie had arranged a special surprise for the kids with another girl who used to work camp with us.  Kelly, who started at Sea World back a year before even me, now works in the Avian department and as such one of her specialties is some of the penguins.  

Sea World has several species of penguins.  Most of them live inside the Penguin Encounter as they are from Polar climates and need lots of ice and snow.  Outside that exhibit live a species called Magellanic Penguins who are from South America and prefer much more temperate climates.  Additionally, behind the scenes there have always been Humboldt Penguins.  The Humboldts, as I understood it, came to Sea World years ago as part of a Species Survival Plan.  In their native habitat they had become endangered because people were harvesting their nesting materials to use as fertilizer.  Hmmm.... what kind of "nesting" materials would birds be using that would be good to use as fertilizer?  Just think on that for awhile... But my advice would be to plug your nose and breath through your mouth while you do.  ;)  Anyway, with their nests getting harvested they weren't breeding well and their numbers declined.  As I remember it, the Humboldts lived at Sea World Behind-the-Scenes in a fairly private little enclosure away from pretty much everyone and were free to do their thing to, um, work on repopulating their species.

Now, I didn't get the whole story from Kelly, but I guess more recently they've been moved into a lovely little enclosure, which honestly, never seemed to get much attention.  At one point years ago I remember there were some rescued baby walruses in there... and I'm sure loads of other creatures had spent time there as well, before these Penguins finally took up their more permanent residence there.  They still seem to be largely left alone, aside from their interactions with the people who care for them, some PR trips (Kelly recently flew to NYC with one of her penguins on her lap to make an appearance on the Today show) and visits from the occasional special visitors.... like, in this case, us.

So, with special permission from Kelly, after we finished camp, she escorted us back to her little Penguin domain so we could meet a bird or two.

There goes Kelly to fetch us a penguin to meet.

Then she brought this little "baby" out (she's getting pretty big already, but she still hasn't gotten in her adult feathers so she's still a baby) for us to interact a little bit with.

"What is it?"

"Can I pet it?"

Watch her walk around.... but DON'T chase her!!

Not sure if he wanted to go in with the rest of them, or let them all out too...

Not wanting to put stress on anyone, Kelly put our baby back in the enclosure and brought out another, adult bird for us to meet too.

I confess, I couldn't resist getting in there a bit myself too.

What a mug.  (You can tell this one was grown because it has
the striped adult feather pattern specific for this species.)

We were so grateful to Kelly for allowing us the time to meet with some of the penguins, but soon enough we had to be one our way.  Kelly, I'm sure had more work to do, and we had to go meet the rest of our party.

Jamie's nanny was bringing down her twins and A.J. to meet us!  That was we could enjoy a few of the things our camp program had not allowed us to do (eat that awesome theme park food, see a show, hit up the gift shops and play at Happy Harbor the Bay of Play!!

There's my girl!  And boy was she NOT happy to be in that stroller with the baby....

So then we got lunch.  I, for one, was starved and quickly devoured my lunch.  Peter and Jamie's daughter acted like 3 year olds and fussed and whined and picked at there food.  This reminded me yet again of just one of the best things about my daughter...

She LOVES to eat.  :)

When I gave up on Peter eating and told him to get back in the rented double stroller (Jamie realized our tired 3 year olds would probably cooperate much better if they didn't have to walk any more) he took his own approach to doing as he was told....

Don't worry, after I took the pictures I made him get back in the seat and ride like a proper child rather than luggage underneath.... although I'm not going to lie, I've seen other kids riding under there many times....

Anyway, so then we decided to go see the Dolphin show.

Me with the kids while we waited for the show to start.... 

(Weird that the only picture I decided to post from the DOLPHIN show happens to be of a Pilot whale.)

As with most things at Sea World, Peter has seen the show before although I don't think in this case it's been since maybe November so he seemed not to remember it.  Even if he did remember it though, those shows have enough variety in the animals and behaviors that you really an watch them over and over again.

He was really into it.

Did I mention how hot it was?

We've been having ourselves a bit of a heat wave here in southern California the last couple of weeks.  Matt told me that the weather people said the low pressure system that was forcing all the oppressive heat down us moved on half way through last week, but then it ended up coming back again when another system moved in.  Yeah, so Friday was just... awful.  The highs were in the 90s (with the cool ocean waters coming down here from Alaska it almost never gets past 85 on the San Diego coast) combined with intense humidity making it just... gross.

Poor A.J., she tends to run hot normally and sitting in the sun watching the show she just seemed to be melting.

Her hair was absolutely DRENCHED with sweat....

Oh... it was definitely time to let the kids go enjoy the water play area to cool off for awhile.

Once THAT was over, it was getting to be time to go.  The kids were all exhausted and let's face it, the adults were probably worse off than the little ones.  We needed to do our shopping and be headed home.

Peter got several items.  He selected a spray fan (not shown) since  Jamie had gotten one
for her kids and he hated to be left out.  He also selected this tube of small rubber dolphins and this sea turtle visor.
Finally, all the kids got personalized leather arm bands with their names.  

A.J. got a Sesame Street Abby Cadaby doll, and a Sea World Trainer Barbie though by the look of
her in this photo she was just too hot and tired to care about either.

One last shot of out camper friends (in their new hats and bracelets) before we went home.

Seriously, we didn't even make it to the freeway before the exhausted kids were O-U-T.

I'd say that's at least one way to measure the day (and the whole week really) as a success.