Sea World

We ventured over to Sea World today to see some orcas and ride some rides. It was our first big theme park excursion and various friends had said this was a great starting point for kids of Emerson and Ethan's ages. It was great! We saw two shows: 'Pets Ahoy!' featuring cats, dogs, birds and other animals trained to do a range of cute and funny things; and 'Blue Horizons' which we now refer to as Cirque du Dolphin (and which the rest of the world calls 'the dolphin show') that includes the predictable and delightful jumping dolphins as well as the less obvious bird-costume lady on a trapeze, olympic-style divers in exotic bird-suggesting costumes and other unexpected semi-aquatic creatures. (We will leave discussion of 'Black Fish' and other criticisms of trained-animals-in-captivity-for-our-entertainment for another time.)

The boys also loved the rides - especially the super fast 'kid' roller coaster and the spinning 'swishy fishies.' And I think Eric especially enjoyed riding the manatee on the carousel.