Day 2 of Sea World

I told you so....I knew that any blogging once I got home from vacation would take me for. ev. er....

But since Emery spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa today I had some extra time to go through another days worth of pictures to get them blogged! Wahoo! 

So Day 2 of Sea World. We got there and on our way to another exhibit we saw that it was play time for the dolphins. And I am so glad that we did! It was so much fun! They throw in a bunch of balls and toys and the dolphins just swim around and play. You can pet them too when they swim up to the walls. It is super fun. We stood there and watched them for a good 10 minutes at least. 

After the dolphins we continued on to the Underwater Shamu exhibit that we were originally going to. This was probably the highlight of the whole trip. All of the people were crowded onto the other side of the exhibit because Shamu had come right up to the glass over there. Emery just stayed where she was, by herself. After a few minutes Shamu swam right up to her and just sat and looked and played through the glass with her. It was so neat! Jake had just pulled out the video camera and I had just gotten out my camera. It was perfect!

It really was the coolest thing! I am so glad we got these cool pictures of it!

Next up we stopped to pet some starfish. 

Emery stopped to feed some flamingos. 

After a few exhibits we had a little bit of time before a show that we wanted to go to so we headed to the Sesame Street Bay of Play again. It is such a fun place for the kids. Emery was still to small to go on a lot of the stuff, but there was still a lot that she could do. Including all the rides. 

The next highlight of her day was this...meeting Elmo. Oh my goodness, you have never seen a happier little girl. She was so impatient waiting in line, she really just wanted to hug him. So as soon as we got to the front and it was her turn she ran to hug him and give him kisses (picture on the left). Macie on the other hand was less than impressed with Elmo. She was terrified of him! I felt so bad! But it was only a few seconds, and Emery was on cloud 9 knowing that she got to meet Elmo!

Jake taking pictures in the wierd, distortion mirrors. 

After some time in the Bay of Play it was time for the "Pet's Rule" show. This show is super neat, I have been to it before and I was super excited to take Emery, knowing her love of cats and dogs. It's mostly a show of cats and dogs, but they do have a pig and some birds in it too. But all the cats and dogs are from rescue shelters. They train them to do the coolest things! Obstacle courses, swimming, cats walking across the tight rope, all kinds of stuff. It is a really fun show.  

After that the girls were exhausted. They fell asleep in the stroller and Jake and I grabbed some lunch while they were sleeping. It was so nice that both days they slept while we grabbed lunch. After lunch Emery was still sleeping so Jake and I did some souvenir shopping. Eventually we just woke her up, haha. She was so tired! But then we headed to the dolphin show!

Seriously so cool. It is amazing what they can teach those animals to do! We had told our hotel shuttle not to pick us up until 6, we wanted to get every minute out of Sea World knowing that it was our last day there. So we went and saw a couple things that we had seen, but wanted to see again, went on a ride, then headed back to the Bay of Play for the girls to play. We were there for about an hour and a half just letting the girls play and play. They definitely wore themselves right out. It was seriously so much fun. I can't wait until our next Southern California trip to go again!!

San Diego- Sea World Day!

Emery has been looking forward to seeing "Shanbu" (as she calls him) so much. Ever since we told her about him and that we were going to see him. She would tell everyone where ever we went that she was going to see the whale Shanbu. Then she would proceed to "talk like a whale" (from Finding Nemo). She has been so excited! Jake was super excited to go too, and I was excited to see them all there because I knew they were going to LOVE it! So Wednesday morning we got up, had breakfast, and headed over.  

Our first stop was the penguins and the puffins. Both girls were enthralled with both. 

After that we went over to see the Beluga Whales and Walruses. Emery really liked both, but continued to talk about the walruses all day. Even after we got home last night she told everyone that she talked to that she saw walruses. 

Sea World has a really cool area for kids called the Sesame Street Bay of Play. We didn't spend too much time there yesterday, but we are going back this morning as soon as it opens and we will definitely be spending a lot of time here. They have kids rides, play grounds, toys, and all kids of fun things. Emery had a lot of fun in the time that we were there. But we had to cut it short to make the Shamu show! The highlight of the day!

Shamu! This is probably the coolest this at Sea World. It is SO much fun. With our little kids, and my camera, we didn't sit in the soak zone this time. Which I think is the first time that I haven't...but it was nice to be dry after the show ;) It is absolutely AMAZING what they can train these whales to do. Both Emery and Macie were amazed the whole time. 

Emery was so tired by this time. She just sat and stared....I think we will go see this show again today. It is just too cool not to see it as much as possible. 

After the Shamu show Jake and I were ready for lunch. As we decided on a place to eat and what to get both girls fell asleep. Which was exactly what I was hoping for! That they would get some sleep while we were eating so they didn't miss anything. Macie woke up not too long after, but Emery slept all through our lunch, so we decided to go look at the souvenir shops, after walking through a couple of those, she was still asleep. We didn't want to waste any time so we went to go see the turtles, but we didn't want her to miss it! We ended up just having to wake her up. She had been asleep for about an hour and half by this time, so we figured that was a pretty good nap. She was OUT. It took me a good 5 minutes to get her awake and going. But once she saw the turtles she was so happy.

A little while after that we went to the Sea Lion and Otter show. Emery absolutely loved the Otter, and she just kept calling the Sea Lions Walruses....haha. But she really liked the show. It is so cute what they do with them. 

Before it was time to go to stopped at the little tide pools that you can pet some of the animals, these were Bat Rays that Jake and Emery were petting, we saw fish, crabs, some little kind of shark. 

Then it was time to go for the day. We were BEAT. And it was getting to dinner time. We decided to wanted to head to Old Town to walk around and have some amazing Mexican Food. So we did. After dinner we walked the streets of Old Town and stopped at an Old Fashioned Candy Shop. They make homemade Taffy right there so we go some, and it is probably the best Taffy I've ever had. SO yummy!

We walked around a few more shops. And I picked out my souvenir for the trip. And oh boy am I so excited to try it when we get home! I got some Olive Oil and Vinegar from the Temucula Olive Oil Company. Oh man I've never tasted such yummy Olive Oil. And it's so healthy and pure. I can't wait to get home and make a delicious salad with some Blood Orange Olive Oil and Vanilla Fig Vinegar. mmmmm

In the center of the square this Mariachi band was playing, they were so good! It was really cool because they were playing like Pink Floyd songs that they had turned into Mariachi. Emery was LOVING it. She sat there and danced and danced until they had to take a break. Every one was loving watching her, and clapping for her. It was so funny. 

Even afterwards they played a special song just for Emery, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". So we got a picture with the singer. Jake and I almost bought their CD just because they were so nice to her and Emery loved it so much!

After that it was getting late and we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. It was such a fun packed day. We were all exhausted from being busy, being in the sun all day, and just having fun all day. Sea World opens in and hour and a half today and I can't wait to hit it all again!

San Diego- Day 1

Wahoo!! We made it! I hadn't originally planned on blogging while we were here. But Macie is asleep for the night, and Emery is reading books, and it's really quiet, but only about 9:00. So I figured why not get a little head start! I know if I leave all of these pictures to do through and blog until we get home, it will take me for. ev. er. So even though it is just a few pictures, I want to get a head start on it! Plus, right now every thing is fresh in my memory ;)

So we decided back in January that before this 3rd baby came, we really wanted a vacation. We originally had a trip to Cabo San Lucas booked for just Jake and I for this April, but with this new baby it just wasn't going to work out for us to use it. So we sold it to someone else. But we knew we needed a vacation to somewhere. Jake has never been to Southern California, and it is one of my families very favorite vacation spots so we decided that was the place! Warm and Beaches were my only stipulations, so San Diego fit the bill. We invited my mom and dad and Shayli to come, since we were going to go over Spring Break, but unfortunately my dad couldn't take off work...So we just decided to go with just us. But that's okay! So we left to San Diego on Tuesday the 25th. Jake went to work, then came home a little early, we packed up the car and headed out!

The first leg of our drive was short, just to Manti to stay with my grandparents. It shaved off about 3 hours of the drive we would have to do the next day. We got there Tuesday night, and then got up at 4 and left on Wednesday morning! We drove straight to St. George and stopped for a few minutes to stretch our legs and do potty breaks. That was probably the best part of the drive since the girls slept that whole time. It was super nice. Then we drove the 1 1/2 hours to Las Vegas and stopped again for the girls to stretch their legs and also to get gas. For the next couple hours there it was a lot slower moving. The girls were sooo tired of being in their seats, but we still had about 5 hours left. We made a few stops to let them at least get out of their seats. Plus many potty breaks along the side of the road for Emery....Over all they were actually really good. As good as you can expect a 2 1/2 year old and an 8 month old to be on a 9 hour drive. There was a lot of whining...and fighting...and crying...but I expected that. It's a long time to expect them to just sit there! We kept Emery busy with movies on the DVD player, books, lots and lots of coloring, and toys. Unfortunately though, it seems that Emery may have inherited my Dad and I's terrible car sickness...because once when I turned off the DVD player and just gave her some coloring books to color, she got really sick and threw up...poor girl. Luckily she had only been eating bananas and grapes all morning so it wasn't too gross. But it did make a mess, and not a fun one to clean up in the middle of nowhere on the side of the freeway! But we got it all cleaned up, her and I in new clothes and we were off again. We made it to San Diego at about 3:00 in the afternoon. Some how right on schedule...I think Jake must be a fast driver!

We checked into our hotel, and got changed to go to the beach. Emery has been begging for weeks to go to the beach. She has seen the beach toys that I bought her sitting in my room and begs and begs. So all day while we were driving she kept asking "Emmy go to beach?" I kept explaining that yes we were going, but it was going to take a while to get there! But she didn't understand. But once we were at the hotel and getting ready to go she was so excited! It was a cloudy day in San Diego, and had been raining earlier that day, so it was a little chilly when we first got there, but after a little while it warmed up. Emery was pretty scared of the waves coming in. She would only go to the water if you would hold her hand at least. She was mostly content to just play in the sand. She is in love with the toys I got her. We mostly held Macie, I did put her down once, and just like I thought she started stuffing handfuls of sand in her mouth...so she had to get picked up again. We stayed for quite a while, until the sun was starting to go down and it was getting cold. Emery was wet too so she was getting really cold. She was really sad to leave, but after I promised her we would come back another day she was okay. We headed back to the hotel to give baths and order in some dinner. We were all so tired from the long drive and the early morning. We did not want to even begin to wrestle kids to hold still in restaurant! It ended up working out perfectly. 

Next up Sea World and Shamu! The part Emery is most excited for. Can't wait!