Spring Break - Sea World - March 25, 2016

Two summers ago, we went to Santa Cruz with the Rasmussen's and the Johnston's.  We had such a fun time with these 2 amazing families, that we decided to try to do a trip together every other year (our fingers are crossed that we'll be able to keep doing this - it's no small feat to find 4 or 5 days when we can all meet somewhere).

We all agreed that San Diego would be a perfect place to go and that the summer was just too busy, so we should do it during our spring breaks.   Come to find out, all three families had different spring breaks. Ahhh!   So, we all pulled our kids out of school for a couple of days and made it work!

We got up really early and left at 5 in the morning on Thursday, March 24th to drive to San Diego.  It was nice to drive the first few hours in a dark so the kids could sleep (Jon was the best driver and so willing to do this) and we got all the way to St. George before stopping.   The kids were great in the car and we pulled in SD around 4:00 their time.   The Rasmussen's were able to come that day as well and were at the grocery store buying groceries when we got there.  

We had a fun night having dinner together and catching up!   The house we rented was in a cul-de-sac and was great.  It had a hot tub, but the water seemed really dirty and it smelled like dirty gym socks.  Bummer!  But, the house had a pool table the kids loved and a fenced in backyard.  

The next morning, we got up and spent the day at Sea World (Beth & Jeff drove to SD this day and hadn't wanted to go to Sea World).   The kids or I had never been and even though it was fairly crowded (which we figured it would be), it was a great day!  The weather was perfect and we were able to see all the shows we wanted to!

 Jon took the oldest 5 on bigger kid rides and I took Hailey to the smaller kids rides.   She is darling at amusement parks and I love watching her excitement!

 This boy did a good job sitting in his stroller.  I nursed him a couple of times there (which ended up being almost the end of his nursing days)

The kids were able to snap a few pictures of the shows:

 Paisley & Hailey became the best of friends - they are the cutest girls ever!

 We saw the last Shamu show of the day and thought we better get in line early because we heard the afternoon show filled up so quickly they had to turn people away.    We sat up at the top of the "Soak Zone" and basically stayed dry.   The animals are beautiful and amazing!   Sea World does a really good job of rescuing animals and helping them.