Any who - A few months back the reality of one of Al's annual, non-negoiatable events hit me like a ton of bricks - the upcoming Jimmy Buffet concert. Al has been to this thing for about 10 years and I have been twice - and that is enough! Al loves this event and I am less than fond of it. I am not the only one - our friends, the Kaspars are in the same situation. So, when Al and Chris put this precious date on the calendar, Amy and I felt it was best if we got the heck out of Dodge. Amy and I put our heads together and came up with a 2 night trip to San Antonio. I have never been (or at least I haven't been since I was old enough to remember) and I knew Ely would love it. So, we booked it. April 18-20 was marked in Sharpie on the calendar, hotel rooms were booked and the conversations about matching outfits commenced. What didn't happen was me giving any thought to the logistics of navigating SeaWorld with 3 kids, two of which don't walk.
Amy did a great job with the research and planning of the trip. She found us a great hotel just a 1/2 mile from SeaWorld. It was new, clean, had adjoining rooms with a living area, free breakfast and best of all free "cocktail hour". Our plan was to leave Colleyville on Wednesday after the babies morning naps and drive as far as we could before stopping. Thursday we would do SeaWorld as long as the kids could stand it and then Friday we might hit the River Walk or another hour or two at SeaWorld before hitting the road back to Colleyville.
Tuesday night, I went over to the Kaspars and we got the car seats loaded in and the big stuff packed up. The minivan held all of our stuff - I might have Amy sold on it for her next car - I have lots of fun gagets in there :) The kids did great on the trip. I failed to mention that Amy has 2 kids - five year old, Rilee, and 11 month old, Brody. Yes, that is 5 kids, 3 of which are 1 year old. With the help of DVDs all 5 kids did great. We stopped south of Austin for diaper changes and some french fries and the one more time south of San Marcos for dinner at Chilis. We made it to San Antonio in time for a little play time, bed time and 2 moms who were still awake enough to enjoy a heavenly chex mix snack and wine.
Thursday was great. All 3 little ones took great morning naps. I took the big kids for a Starbucks and Target run - a great way to kill an hour or so! After naps, we were all ready to hit SeaWorld with great enthusiasm and energy. It was a ton of fun. Exhausting, but fun! The shows were great certainly lived up to their hype. Ely and Rilee had a great time feeding the sea lions fish. I loved the penguin exhibit - there was even a baby penguin chick in the arctic nursery - so cool! Of course, they had midway style games, which Ely loves, so he got to play a game and won a stuffed bear. There were snakes, sea lions, dolphins, penguins, flamingos, ducks, birds, alligators, fish and of course Shamu.
We saw the dolphin/Beluga Whale Show. It was a great way to start the day and all the kids loved it. I was impressed that it even held the babies' attention. The second show was the sea lion "drama". It was okay but the babies were totally bored by it. The "One World"/Shamu show was the best. They are amazing animals and so big. They are so shiny they look fake! All 3 of my kids loved it and were totally engaged the entire time. I loved length of the shows - about 25 minutes. Just enough time!
We went on a great day - middle of the week, when the weather was perfect (80s and sunny), not on a holiday. There were times it seemed as though we were the only ones at the park. I couldn't imagine going when it is crowded. There was so much we really didn't do - the Sesame Street play area, water park and some of the shows were closed. Definitely reasons to come back for a 2nd visit.
The one major piece of the SeaWorld puzzle I didn't think through (or think of at all) was the "stroller parking, picking up 2 babies and all of our bags for each show" part. For the first show I left the babies in the stroller and rolled them up to the back row. They were not impressed with this decision at all, they wanted to be out and about to get a better view of the show. I held them during about 1/2 the show but boy, those babies get heavy fast! The second 2 shows, I unloaded the stroller and hauled the babies and our bags up to the bleachers and let them sit on my lap or roam our bleacher area. It worked our pretty well and I am thankful that all those around us thought the babies were cute enough to be nice about it! Next time I will plan the trip when Al can come or at least someone who can take a kid for me. Although, if the babies are walking, I might have them strapped to one of those back pack leashes! As we get closer to having 2 toddlers I can totally see this being a valuable purchase!
The kids all made it from 12noon - 5pm at SeaWorld - pretty impressive! All 5 crashed out after dinner and Amy and I had some time to relax. I was beat though and couldn't imagine navigating SeaWorld any more or trying to figure out the River Walk on Friday morning. We hit the road by 10 am and were home by 3:30. The kids did just as good on the way home. For which I am thankful!
Thanks Amy for a great trip and for all of your planning and research - it certainly paid off!
Unloaded and ready to take on the day. Thanks to Tina Fett for the awesome shirts!
First show - dolphins and beluga whales
Feeding the sea lions
"Enjoying"the sea lion show - noticed neither baby is even watching. They were too busy enjoying their temporary freedom from the stroller!
Ely and Rilee
Feeding the fish and checking out the alligators - we counted 16!
Last show of the day - Orca Whales
Luke was VERY into it!
Two tired and dirty babies on the way home!
Amy had the great pictures - thank you for capturing our weekend so well!
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