Sea World with the Gallers

The Gallers family is down visiting Florida for the week and we decided to meet up with them for a day at Sea World. I've actually never been, and, of course, this was Annabelle and Corgan's first time too. Keith hasn't been since he was a kid, so it was basically new to him too. All 4 of the kids (Annabelle, Corgan, Leah, and Erin) were great all day, despite not stopping for naptime!

It's funny how the measure of a "great time" changes as life changes. A few years ago, a "great time" at an amusement park would be a park with lots of big roller coasters and scary rides. Now a "great time" is a park that brings out the joy in my kids. Of course, Corgan was too little to care much about Sea World (he basically slept through the whole day), but Annabelle really seemed to love it! During the Shamu show and the Dolphin show, I ended up watching Annabelle for a good bit of the time. Seeing her expressions, whether they were excitement, concern, confusion, or fear, was priceless! She really liked when they would jump out of the water (of course, doesn't everybody?), dance, and splash. She loved when the birds flew over too. This girl really has a thing for birds. Also, on our way out we stopped by the Sting Ray feeding area where the rays were swarming around and you could reach in and pet them as they swam by. Annabelle bravely let me put her hand in the water for the rays to brush up against it as they passed. That was pretty freakin' cool. :) Tonight at bedtime when Belle and I were talking about her day, I said "Did you see the sting rays today?" and she said "touch" to let me know that she remembers touching them.

Sea World has this great kid super-playground area there that Annabelle, Leah, and both Daddies had loads of fun in. It's crazy how independent Annabelle is getting. She wanted to go on the big slide that they have there all by herself (climbed up the 20+ stairs alone, got in line, and went down the slide by herself) and didn't even want Daddy to stand with her, much less touch her, when she was on the merry-go-round. She reluctantly rode in the stroller some during the day, but most of the time wanted to walk by herself. The walking slowed everyone down because she also wanted to stop and look at EVERYTHING, but she wanted to do it herself and didn't even want to be held. When we were watching the shows, she didn't even want to sit on our laps. She preferred standing next to us on the seat. She's so like her Mommy! (No, I'm not saying that I like to stand on seats... I'm saying that I started showing signs of being very independent at a very young age.)

Leah and Annabelle were super together too. They shared (most of the time) and played together well. Annabelle really seemed to like following what Leah was doing. I always love when Annabelle has an older friend around to play with because she seems to really observe them and try to be older too. Leah is such a doll and SO smart... good influence for Bellee! :) We really enjoy hanging out with the Gallers' family. I wish they lived closer.

Usually at the end of a post about an exciting outing like this one, I have a link to pictures of the event. I'm VERY sad to say that this post will have no such link. :( In effort to get us all out of here and on the road by 7:30am this morning, I stayed up late preparing everything (packing the diaper bag, charging the camera batteries, getting out extra clothes, straightening up the house, etc.) and was too tired to get up in the morning. So between not getting out of bed until 7:30 and getting the kids ready, we didn't end up leaving the house until 9:30! All of these preparations were great, except that I left one thing off the list... make sure there's a memory card in the camera! I had the camera with battery fully charged, but NO memory card! And to make matters worse, the Gallers had their camera stolen yesterday so they were counting on me to be the picture-taker for the day! Poopies!!! So... no adorable pictures of the precious faces that Bellee made when she saw the animals, meeting Erin Gallers and her beautiful eyes and squeezable cheeks, the family out enjoying a hot day in Florida, or of Leah & Belle's growing friendship. :( Poop!