DAY 3:

Our last post left the Childs Family resting after a fun-filled day at Disneyland. What new adventure awaits them today? Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early to catch our tour bus heading to SEAWORLD!!! I love Sea World and Maddie loves animals and water and so I thought the combination of the two would be the perfect thing. The bus ride was long and before we knew it all three of the kids had conked out. In the pictures you'll see them all asleep on the bus. I even fell asleep. Our bus driver pointed things out to us at the beginning of the trip and then as we got closer to San Diego he said that he wanted to point out "a very beautiful building that looks like a castle. The temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints." The San Diego temple is so beautiful and we quickly woke up the kids so they could see it. My girls literally Love to see the Temple. I thought it was really neat that our tour guide would make a special point of making sure we saw that. So, we arrive at Sea World and we look at our map and show times and make our plan of what we're going to do. First stop, the seals and sea lions. Before we went and grabbed our seats for the show we fed the seals and sea lions. Maddie was not paying attention and the very first fish she tried to feed she put up and over the glass wall. A seagull came out of nowhere and snatched it right out of her hand. It really freaked her out and she got a little upset. We showed her the little hand holes that they have for to slip the fish in so the gulls don't get them. She loved feeding the animals. The show was pretty good. They did a t.v. show theme and had the Iron Chefs and Dancing with the Stars and a Law and Order kind of a thing and a few others that I can't remember right now. The big pink blob that you see in some of the pictures is a walrus and boy is that thing unpleasant to look at. At first I thought it was a Manatee it was so huge! The little otter was so cute and mischievous. He even had a little stage fright...so adorable. When we asked the girls which one they liked the best, of course Emma said she liked the pink one. Next was Shamu. My favorite. They are such beautiful animals but still strike a little fear in the pit of your stomach. There were a few dolphins in the show and they are so amazing to watch. Maddie started getting a little upset because she wanted to go down and touch the animals. I had made the mistake of telling the girls that you could touch and pet the dolphins because I remember doing that on my last trip to San Diego about 10 years ago. I even have pictures of it. But, apparently they don't have that anymore. If you want to get up close and personal with the dolphins you have to pay through the nose to do it. Which I was more than willing to do for Maddie because I knew how much she loves animals, but the times they had available conflicted with other shows and things going on. Anyway, I tried to explain to her that we weren't allowed to do that anymore. Sure enough, as soon as I get her calmed down, they show a little boy that they had selected from the audience to go do and touch Shamu. That started the tears rolling again because she wanted to that and wondered when it would be her turn. I was trying not to get too upset with her because I knew her little heart wanted nothing more than to just sit and swim with these graceful animals, but she sure wasn't giving up on her whining about it! We took a break and had some lunch. The kids got souvenir Shamu lunch pails. Then off to the other shows. We pet the stingrays. Emma was a little chicken about it and Mads could never get her hands down far enough into the water. Jason helped her a little and she was a little scared at first, but then just loved it. I admit that I was freaking out inside about their barbed tails. Jason could tell and reminded me that they were probably de-barbed, but ever since the Crocodile guy died from that I can't get it out of my mind. We touched some starfish and held a few of them and saw some pretty large sea turtles. We found a few flocks of flamingoes and I took a few pictures of Em doing her best flamingo impression. We went and saw the penguins and manatees and all the aquariums and the sharks. OOOO, they scare me! Had an ice cream treat break and then headed off to see the dolphins. Back to the crying about touching the dolphins again. We sat on the very front row and yep, got soaked. It was so much fun! I didn't get very good pictures though because I kept hiding my camera so that it wouldn't get wet. I'd bring it back out as fast as I could, snap the picture and then hide it again. I don't think the Em enjoyed getting wet though. They had a new show this year. Amazing pets or something like that. They had these dogs and cats and pigs and birds and you named it trained and do a little show for us. It was pretty amazing. They told us that all the animals they trained were all adopted from a shelter or found on the streets. They let the kids come up afterwards and pet some of the animals. FINALLY!!! Maddie could touch an animal. Too bad it had to be a dog and pig, but hey, she was happy! I'm pretty sure we saw all that there was to see. They don't have their really cool shows in the off season but we still had a pretty packed and fun day. Maddie was given birthday money from her great-grandma Redd and so she wanted to buy a necklace. She chose a purple jeweled starfish necklace that broke about 10 minutes later. She was playing with Nathan and it got caught on the stroller and snagged. I've since fixed it but sadly, there are no pictures of it. I let the girls choose their souvenirs. Emma chose a pink dolphin that was attached to a large twisty sucker, and Maddie chose a large stuffed Shamu. Emma lovingly refers to her dolphin as her "pink Shampoo." Maddie's favorite show was Shamu and she has been in love with that thing ever since. In one of the pictures I took of her with her Shamu he is doing a "trick." We headed home on the bus and saw the temple one last time. We had the bus drop us off a little bit before our hotel so we could grab a bite to eat at IHOP's and then headed home. It was such a fun day and I'm glad we decided to take a day out for Sea World. The girls have loved it and hung up their postcards we bought in their room. I'm so thankful that my children have such a love for these amazing animals that Heavenly Father has created. Madalynn reminds us to love all of Heavenly Father's creatures...except spiders. So off to bed to catch some sleep before we wake up and head off to.... WHERE WILL THE CHILDS FAMILY GO NEXT? Find out tomorrow when we return to the CHILDS FAMILY ADVENTURE! The pictures of us standing in front of the Mickey statue were taken in front of our hotel while we were waiting for the bus to come.