Sea World

On Friday, we met up with Grandpa Bud and Grandma Lorna and went to check out Sea World in San Diego. Before we entered, we had to see how we measured up!
Addy was not quite tall enough to do anything.
Emily was tall enough to do most things.
Cole was tall enough to do everything.
And Chad was confused and thought he was measuring up to the Gorilla at the Salt Lake Zoo! (Or that's the best explanation I can come up with for this pose!)
I'm not sure what I expected of Sea World, but it was definitely different than I imagined. We started out by seeing some random animals.
I'm not even sure what this animal is!
Nope, not a snake...a legless lizard. I didn't even know that they existed!!
A normal lizard
And a colorful bird.
Another colorful bird.
Cole's favorites, the penguins!
After looking at non-sea animals for a while, we wandered upon the dolphin show that was about to start.
The dolphins were neat and did lots of fun tricks.
However, the show also had divers and a whole storyline that were less intriguing to the kids (and me)!
Although the trainers that rode on the dolphins were pretty neat and talented!
After the dolphins, we decided it was time to see some sea animals (or at least one's that live in and around water).
So we saw sharks,
And a shark mouth,
Some very, very large fish,
And lots and lots and lots of starfish!
We always like the hands-on exhibits where you can actually touch them.
Addy's arms weren't quite long enough to touch them,
Until Grandpa gave her a boost.
There was also a giant starfish. (Kind of like the world's largest groundhog!!)
My favorite part of Sea World was feeding the seals. It was a trick to get the fish to the seal before the bird (you can see it swooping in the background) came and grabbed it. They were pretty aggressive birds.
I think this might have been Emily's favorite part too. Even if it did make her hands smell fishy!
After visiting these animals, we went to see the Shamu show. I enjoyed this one much more than the dolphin show. The killer whale is an amazing animal!
Yes, the kids decided they wanted to sit in the splash zone.
Although we didn't get wet where we were, so Cole and Emily moved down farther so they could get splashed...which they did!
We eventually talked the kids into going on a rafting type ride. They liked it so much we had to go twice! The second time we got much wetter. I wasn't thrilled because it wasn't warm!
We finished the day by going to the Arctic section of the park. Chad, Cole, and Emily took a "helicopter" ride to get there. Addy and I just walked, which made us really tired by the time we got there.
While in this area, we saw possibly the most intriguing, yet ugliest animal alive...the walrus.
We also saw some Beluga whales.
And Addy's favorite animal, the polar bear.
Then, the kids got to pretend to be polar bears and climb through their caves.
There were several other things we didn't quite get to that day, including most of the rides. But, we certainly had a good time and saw plenty. It's probably not my first choice of money value for entertainment, but we had a good time!