A Sea World Surprise

For Labor Day Weekend we decided to head to San Antonio with a special surprise in mind for the kiddos.

Our hotel in San Antonio had a full length mirror for a closet door. Garrett crawled over to the door and was mesmerized by the baby. He kept reaching out to the mirror to try and touch the other baby.

He sat in front of the mirror for quite a while.

This picture makes me laugh out loud. I love his expression.

The big surprise is coming! Addie had an idea about where we were going, but we hadn't told her for sure.

Here are the kids seeing the killer whale statue at the entrance to Sea World. They were SOOOO excited!

Waiting in line before they opened the gates, Ben tried to climb in with Shamu.

Garrett was not as excited as Addie and Ben.

She was one happy lit

The pretty stained glass at the entrance to the park.

First stop was the kids area. Addie came to play in the little splash area with Garrett.

Garrett loved the water, but he is still moving around by sliding on his belly and that was not a lot of fun on the cement. I did like all the shade for the little ones while they played.

They had fun together with the water.

Daddy and Ben Ben went up high on the ropes. Jon said that it was fun, but to wear shoes because the knots hurt his feet.

We were right next to the stage so when the show started we were able to get pretty good seats.

The show started with Elmo coming out on stage and I don't think Ben knew quite what to think.

They did a great job and the kids were mesmerized.

Even Garrett was enthralled.

Addie and Ben watching the show together.

Ben wanted to go on a ride. This is new for us because Addie has never been much of a ride girl. Daddy and Ben waited in line and at the last minute Addie decided she wanted to go too. I was so proud of her for getting on the ride. She looks so happy here, I love it.

As the ride started to go up she started to get nervous.

As the ride moved, very slowly, Addie started yelling at me "I am not having fun!" The other parents in line were cracking up and so was I. She was so pitiful. Ben was having so much fun.

She never got out of control and the ride finally finished. Ben loved it and wanted to do more rides, but it was time to head over to see Shamu!

While I was taking pictures of the big kids this is what Garrett was doing. The backpack was hanging open and he managed to pull the puffs container out and was chewing on it.

We were just headed off the ride and on our way when all of the characters from the show came walking by and we were able to get some pictures with them.

Addie has never been a big fan of characters when they get close. She had been talking about meeting Abby during the show so I made her go up and get a picture. After the picture she was happy.

Ben got to meet his favorite character, Cookie Monster!

Next it was time for Shamu. Garrett fell sound asleep in my arms while we waited

I ran down to take a picture of Jon and the kids. They were sitting as close as they could get. Addie wouldn't put clothes on over her bathing suit because she wanted Shamu to splash her. I hated not sitting with them, but Garrett and the camera did not want to get splashed so after I took this picture I ran back up to my seat.

One of the warnings they put up.

The show started and it was awesome. The killer whales really seem huge, and these are the smaller female whales.

This is my favorite picture of the whales.

They started to bring them around. This was right in front of Addie. I was hoping the whale was going to splash them, but then something happened.

One of the other whales came over and rammed the whale that was performing. Then they just started swimming around. It turns out females whales are the more dominant of the species and these whales did not feel like performing. They tried to get them back under control, but ended up having to end the show early.

Garrett enjoyed chewing on one of Addie's whales while we waited.

We were able to go down get some pictures after. I think it looks like the whale is going to eat Garrett in this picture.

Ben thought they were pretty cool.

Jon got a chance to break away and go on a roller coaster while I waited with the kids. Can you see his hair blown back? No, I am not making fun of Jon's hairline, it really did look funny in person.

The dolphin show was amazing. I love the high diving people and amazing animals. You can see the dolphins on the right.

We have been watching a lot of Rio in our house so the blue macaws were pretty neat to see.

After we left the park the kids didn't make it 5 minutes down the road, they had played so hard and it was so HOT. From Sea World we headed out to a resort for a time share presentation. We had it all planned out nicely, when our appointment was supposed to start and when we could grab some dinner and head back to Sea World for the evening. When we got to the 'resort' and saw 50+ people waiting for their appointments we knew our evening was not going to happen as planned. After 3 hours, a building that lost power, and a very sweet sales lady we said "No thank you" and headed back to Sea World.

We debated about just going back to the hotel, it was late and we were tired, but there were special Labor Day Fireworks that night so we sucked it up and went back, and we were so glad that we did.

We got a watermelon slushi that was a BIG hit with Ben.

Addie was pretty tired, but still happy to be there.

Garrett thought the slushi looked pretty good too.

Ben made sure he couldn't get to it, he is such a thoughtful big brother.

This made me laugh. I feel like this is such a good representation of Ben at this age, climbing by a Do Not Enter sign.

Jon dancing to some of the awesome music they had.

Ben was ready for some more!

Addie liked the pink fireworks the best.

Garrett was such a trooper with a very long day. We didn't get back to our hotel until after 11 that night. Instead of going back to Sea World the next day we decided that we would take it easy in the hotel the next day while I headed up to the outlet mall nearby.

The outlet mall was awesome and I will be going back, thankfully I had a time limit for my shopping and then it was time to head home. We had a very quiet ride home.

We had a great weekend and now it is time for back to school for the Hilton Kids.